Pop! -- Aury Wallington

Every time Marit has a boyfriend, everything is just peachy until the relationship gets physical.  Then she panics about the possibility of having sex and dumps the guy.  This goes back to sixth grade:

Things were heaven between Nicky and me until that fateful day they gave the sixth graders "the talk."  Boys were herded off to the gym, while we girls shuffled over to the auditorium to hear the Plain Facts about periods and boys and "no means no." 

The problem wasn't so much what the school nurse said during The Talk--I'd heard all that before, from my older sister.  But the publicness of it was unbearable.

And the thought of doing any of the things she talked about--when every girl in my class now knew the clinical terms for them?  Well, it was just too disturbing.

I could not keep encouraging Nicky's affection when, obviously, I was going to have to become a nun.  I broke things off that afternoon.

Marit has one major goal in mind for her senior year in high school:  De-virginization.  She feels that it's less a matter of peer pressure (though she does suspect that she's the only female senior at Sterling Prep who has not had sex) and more a matter of getting it over with so she'll stop feeling so nervous about it and finally be able to have a boyfriend for longer than a month.

She meets a boy who she likes a whole lot -- he's smart, funny and extremely easy on the eyes.  But she can't get involved with him because she knows that her sex hang-ups will ruin everything.  She needs to deal with Her First Time first. 

So.  What better person to lose it to than her best friend?

It doesn't take long for Marit to realize that sex -- even super-safe sex with a pact to remain friends after The Deed is Done -- can be complicated.

In terms of voice, the book reminded me very much of the later Princess Diaries books, minus the whining*.  Like Mia, Marit is easy to like, constantly obsesses about sex, is quick to blush and is somewhat of a klutz.  They both love Pretty in Pink.**  They both have to deal with horrible popular girls:

The rest of the cliques in school, who remained happily unmonikered, just referred to Juliet's crowd as "the popular kids" or, more frequently, "those bitches".

Okay, I admit it.  I mostly just included that because it made me laugh out loud.

It's a good book.  It has a good pace, snappy dialogue, made me laugh and there's a lot of truth in it.  Marit's sister mentions briefly that she shouldn't Do It if she isn't ready and there is a sub-plot involving teen pregnancy and a bit about reputation, but Aury Wallington very impressively never uses the Frying Pan Message Method.  Some people will doubtless take issue with the fact that Marit feels that sex is necessary at her age, but there are a lot of teens who will find her feelings very familiar.

But wait!  There's more.

As I said, Pop! is very frank about the physical and emotional impacts of sex -- Planned Parenthood is featuring it for a reason.  The sex in this book is realistic, often awkward and not romanticized.  But it isn't particularly explicit -- which leads me to the whole Borders "controversy".

Okay.  Here's the deal.  Pop! was not picked up by Borders.  (In stores, anyway -- it is available online.)  One of their children's buyers said:

“It is true that we monthly review many titles and because the space in the YA section is not unlimited, we make choices every day regarding what to carry and what not to carry. Other factors in this decision include the format of the book, the price, the cover design, and the competitive landscape.”

There has been speculation that the decision may have been due to the book's sexual content.  But I don't buy it.  I honestly think that the decision (which, what with all of the free publicity, may have already changed) has nothing to do with the content. 

My local Borders carries Doing It, Good Girls, Looking for Alaska and of course, Forever.  All of them are shelved in the teen section, all of them deal frankly and seriously and realistically with sex, some more explicitly than others, and at least three of the four are more explicit than Pop!.  Also, three of the other four were written by established authors, which I would assume is a significant factor when it comes to ordering. 

It is a good book.  And it's too bad that it isn't being carried at Borders.  But I really, really, really doubt that their decision had a thing to do with the book's content.

*And minus the Big Black Hole of Suck, too.

**I'm going to have to do a John Hughes movie series at the library -- this is the third book in recent memory that references Pretty in Pink, and most of the teens I work with have never seen it.  Also, without having seen it, kids won't pick up on the parallels between Pop! and the movie, which aren't necessary, but are fun.

Comments

[Chrissy]

Borders' YA sections are tiny tiny tiny. I haven't seen this change, while B&N YA sections are spreading and getting prominent display space. I would agree with you that it's a new book by an unestablished author about a topic that has been covered in serveral other books and that is what is being factored in to the decision to carry or not carry. It sounds fantastic, and if it gets any recognition by other sources they'll probably change the decision.

[MotherReader]

Thanks for the through review of the book. There are times when I want just the most minimum information to get me interested in the book, but in this case, more is better. I'd like to read it, but I wonder if my library will carry it. Hmm.

[Leila]

It's a decent read -- I have minor quibbles, but overall, I liked it. And it was nice to read a story about teen sex that didn't involve anyone getting some horrible STD or a bad reputation or run over by a bus or anything. (There is a character who has a bad rep AND is pregnant, but it works. I'm trying to not give away major plot points.)