Wonderful Wednesdays is a meme about spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven't read them recently. Each week will have a different theme or genre of book to focus on.
This week's theme is guilty pleasures.
My guilty pleasures are YA novels. I love them! They are my guilty pleasure because I will forgo reading a more grown-up/classic book to pick up a YA novel. There is a series that I read for the first time in 6th grade, but have reread often over the years. It's the Class of '88 series by Linda A. Cooney. I bought the first book for $.99 in a Scholastics Reading book club flyer and then bought each subsequent book with every book order. I even bought the Class of '89 series, but it is the Class of '88 that I love best. I remember one Saturday my senior year (when I was feeling especially melancholy about the whole leaving high school ordeal) I read the whole series only coming out of my room to eat lunch and to visit with my mother when she came home from work.
These books follow the story of "Five friends. Nick the golden boy, Celia the beautiful, Sean the thinker, Allie the wild, Meg the brave" as they enter brand new Redwood High School. They go through some tough times such as dating college guys, transfering to Art school, first crushes and bullying the nerds, but through it all they do stay true friends. I also like that the book begins in Nick's tree house and ends, 4 years later at the same place. And, although these books are a bit contrived, I do think that they hold true to what high school is like, flirty, melodramatic, over the top, but tender and bittersweet and a heck of a good time.
Love this post! I haven't read this series of books but they sound a lot like Sweet Valley High.
ReplyDeleteThis is a fun idea...I don't know if I'd call it a guilty pleasure, but when I need a break from serious reading, I love to read culinary mysteries :)
ReplyDeleteHeh, those do sound like fun! I think that's why I enjoy watching Glee so much. Now that I am many decades out of high school I can actually enjoy the intensity of it all from afar.
ReplyDeletesam, they are like Sweet Valley High, only there's four of them...only four, and the new high school provided some interesting background for conflict.
ReplyDeletethe bookgirl, culinary mysteries sound fun...although i have no idea what they are...will research today!
trish, i too, have deep love for Glee (and for the same reasons, as well as the singing :D)and watch it on HULU because it comes in during NCIS which I also have deep love for.