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kb_hg's review against another edition
3.0
I lovvved this book in high school. But reading it as an adults it definitely has its problems
askewmom86's review against another edition
5.0
I must have read this book a dozen times. I love it. Emotional, heart-felt, truthful, deep, painful. I'd recommend this book to all teens. I've personally struggled with SI most of my adolescent life. This is definitely a favorite book of mine.
toastx2's review against another edition
3.0
Crosses - A cut up book about a cut up girl
December 11, 2007
In a bookstore with Jenn, we had about an hour to kill waiting to see a movie together. What to do, what to do. Well, let's go over to the mall bookstore and browse the shelves. We are both avid readers so it is always nice to talk books with her. I described a book to her (I was at a loss for the name of the book or the author at the time, even though it was one that was in my collection). She stated that she had never read it the cover creeped her out as a kid. The next day she came forward with a full cover image of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, and I was surprised we were able to communicate images into books. Cover art is important people!
So we are in the bookstore, wandering about both together and on separate missions. It gets into my head that I have not read the books Go Ask Alice / Jay’s Journal since I was in jr high school. I mosey over to the computer to look up which section they would be located in. I find them under “Anonymous” in the young adult section of the store. Unexpectedly, Anonymous falls under a subsection of Miscellany, not 'A' as you would expect. Proud of my find, off I go stalking Jenn to show off my prize!
Jenn advised that she always felt that Shelly Stoehr's Crosses was a better, more graphic teen scare fiction. Not seeing a copy in the store, she tells me she can dig it out of her storage unit in order to allow me access to it, provided I don't mind reading an incredibly beat up copy that has been mangled by her teenage whims.
Here are my perceptions, along with images of the mangled book corpse:
Crosses is a very short read. Clocking in at under 200 pages, don't pick it up if you are looking for substance in a piece of work. It is a light and fluffy (read: overly dramatic / generally droll) approach to teenage cutting, drug use, and sex. The author, Shelley Stoehr, has written many similar books with titles such as 'Weird on the outside' and 'Wannabe'. It looks like she had some success with Crosses and decided to relive her youthful self-depreciating behavior through books and make a little nest egg of money.
I am not dissing on the book. It was enjoyable, in as much as you can expect being inside the head of a fifteen-year-old girl on the decline can be “fun”.
Nancy, the main character, pushes the storyline through its motions in a first-person semi-journal style. There are no dates on the chapters, nor cheesy “dear diary” lines tossed in, just narrative. She is your average stereotypical jr high school girl. She is whiney and pig-headed, self-serving and lacking wit.
Nancy does well in school but is tired of being the 'smart person' in her classes. She wants to stand out. Nancy begins to wear safety pins in her ears and decks herself out in punk rock “fashion” but has no known knowledge of the punk rock world. Nancy meets Katie in the bathroom, and over the course of days, they learn of a shared fascination with cutting themselves. The action focuses on them, associating with their assumed reality and pain. They become fast friends and begin to steal, consume drugs and raise hell. Mainly they just lay about sick from whatever drug or drink they imbibed too much of in the last chapter.
You can guess where the faux morality tale goes from there.
Putting myself back in the combat boots I wore in high school, I can see this being either a prized placement book on my bookshelf or just as easily, being set fire as a trash novel intending to use scare tactics to bring children away from drug use. I can't tell you which it would have been as I am far too different of a person now, but I did honestly enjoy the book. It was refreshing to read someone else's misery and cluelessness.
I can see where this book would backfire and could have been used as a misguided and utterly inaccurate handbook for kids.
Some lessons this book would teach:
* Don't drink so much that you pass out and nearly get raped
* 3 easy ways to shoplift
* Concert survival on hash brownies
* What not to do when shrooming
December 11, 2007
In a bookstore with Jenn, we had about an hour to kill waiting to see a movie together. What to do, what to do. Well, let's go over to the mall bookstore and browse the shelves. We are both avid readers so it is always nice to talk books with her. I described a book to her (I was at a loss for the name of the book or the author at the time, even though it was one that was in my collection). She stated that she had never read it the cover creeped her out as a kid. The next day she came forward with a full cover image of A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, and I was surprised we were able to communicate images into books. Cover art is important people!
So we are in the bookstore, wandering about both together and on separate missions. It gets into my head that I have not read the books Go Ask Alice / Jay’s Journal since I was in jr high school. I mosey over to the computer to look up which section they would be located in. I find them under “Anonymous” in the young adult section of the store. Unexpectedly, Anonymous falls under a subsection of Miscellany, not 'A' as you would expect. Proud of my find, off I go stalking Jenn to show off my prize!
Jenn advised that she always felt that Shelly Stoehr's Crosses was a better, more graphic teen scare fiction. Not seeing a copy in the store, she tells me she can dig it out of her storage unit in order to allow me access to it, provided I don't mind reading an incredibly beat up copy that has been mangled by her teenage whims.
Here are my perceptions, along with images of the mangled book corpse:
Crosses is a very short read. Clocking in at under 200 pages, don't pick it up if you are looking for substance in a piece of work. It is a light and fluffy (read: overly dramatic / generally droll) approach to teenage cutting, drug use, and sex. The author, Shelley Stoehr, has written many similar books with titles such as 'Weird on the outside' and 'Wannabe'. It looks like she had some success with Crosses and decided to relive her youthful self-depreciating behavior through books and make a little nest egg of money.
I am not dissing on the book. It was enjoyable, in as much as you can expect being inside the head of a fifteen-year-old girl on the decline can be “fun”.
Nancy, the main character, pushes the storyline through its motions in a first-person semi-journal style. There are no dates on the chapters, nor cheesy “dear diary” lines tossed in, just narrative. She is your average stereotypical jr high school girl. She is whiney and pig-headed, self-serving and lacking wit.
Nancy does well in school but is tired of being the 'smart person' in her classes. She wants to stand out. Nancy begins to wear safety pins in her ears and decks herself out in punk rock “fashion” but has no known knowledge of the punk rock world. Nancy meets Katie in the bathroom, and over the course of days, they learn of a shared fascination with cutting themselves. The action focuses on them, associating with their assumed reality and pain. They become fast friends and begin to steal, consume drugs and raise hell. Mainly they just lay about sick from whatever drug or drink they imbibed too much of in the last chapter.
You can guess where the faux morality tale goes from there.
Putting myself back in the combat boots I wore in high school, I can see this being either a prized placement book on my bookshelf or just as easily, being set fire as a trash novel intending to use scare tactics to bring children away from drug use. I can't tell you which it would have been as I am far too different of a person now, but I did honestly enjoy the book. It was refreshing to read someone else's misery and cluelessness.
I can see where this book would backfire and could have been used as a misguided and utterly inaccurate handbook for kids.
Some lessons this book would teach:
* Don't drink so much that you pass out and nearly get raped
* 3 easy ways to shoplift
* Concert survival on hash brownies
* What not to do when shrooming
stephrobin's review against another edition
2.0
I found an old photo of myself reading this in high school, when I was 14. Although this book deals with important issues, all I can think of is: WHO in their right mind would get BLACK OUT wasted, if they had the luxury of seeing DAVID-FREAKING-BOWIE LIVE IN CONCERT??!!! That's pretty much all I remembered.
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