Teenage angst

Betsy gets steamed about a book for teenagers.

When I was a kid of 9 or 10, I devoured teen books. At that time they were all about going steady, hanging out at the drivein, going to sock hops and learning to be a grown-up. An example--Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly. The book had whiskers when I read it, but it really spoke to me.

For some reason teen books have gone over to the dark side. At first, they were about being fat or your parents getting divorced or having a stepmom. They gradually morphed into examinations of child abuse, incest, alcoholism and for all I know, cannibalism. A sympathetic look at a suicide bomber obviously is just one step further down that road.

No wonder no-one reads any more.