Love and Haight -- Susan Carlton

It's almost 1972, and seventeen-year-old Chloe and her best friend MJ are in San Francisco for their New Year's celebration. Well, they're technically there for New Year's, but they're also secretly there to get Chloe an abortion.

They stay at Chloe's bohemian aunt's apartment, and they explore San Francisco. Chloe reconnects with her old boyfriend (not the father, though her relationship with Teddy is plenty complicated already, what with him being MJ's brother and all, and them having never told MJ about their summer of lurrrve), and jumps through all of the necessary legal hoops to procure her abortion. All the while, Chloe works through the emotional aspects of her decision while dealing with the fact that MJ's Catholic roots are suddenly making her resistant to the idea of Chloe terminating the pregnancy.

So, you know how some historical fiction creates a sense of era with a combination of detail and atmosphere and just... feel? Whereas other historical fiction creates a sense of era by name-dropping four or five examples of music, pop culture references, articles of clothing, and/or slang?

Love and Haight is one of the latter. Which, for me, never makes for a particularly immersive (or, honestly, enjoyable) read.

Due to the era, the writing style, and due to the subject matter—it describes, step-by-step, the process of procuring a legal abortion in the years before Roe v. Wade—it's actually quite reminiscent of an old-school issue novel. The major difference here being that while much of Love and Haight was problematic, it wasn't entirely preachy*: the characters have different views about the issue, and deal with them in different ways. So that's a positive.

But in addition to the other flaws, there's also a deus ex machina at the end to get [SPOILER] Chloe's up-until-then-in-the-dark mother involved [END SPOILER], and that felt a bit cheap. (Without specifying what actually happened, I will say that it also, actually, made the book feel like an old-school problem novel.)

So, overall: Eh. Not my favorite of the year.

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*Well, except that the only person who was flat-out, across-the-board against abortion was a preachy strawman jerkface. Then again, people like that do exist. MJ doesn't think it's right, but she [SPOILER] is ultimately supportive of her friend's right to choose [END SPOILER]. So I felt like there was at least an attempt to show different shades of opinion.

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Author page.

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Amazon.

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Book source: ILLed through my library.

Comments

[Ilana Waters]

Just curious (not even going to touch the abortion issue here): why the trouble w/deus ex machina? I know a lot of folks are hating on it these days, and I'm always interesting in fresh opinions.

[Jo]

Always appreciate your honest reviews (even if I don't always comment). I looked, and this book hasn't gone out more than once in our library.

[Leila]

Thanks, Jo -- always nice to know that they aren't just headed out into to a void. :)