You Be Me
Friendship in the Lives of Teen Girls
edited by Susan Musgrave
contributions by Anne Fleming & Aislinn Hunter
- Grade:
- 10 to 17
Girls in their teens form friendships that are astonishingly intense, yet these relationships are often broken and reformed, filled with confidences and betrayals, loyalty and fickleness.
In these deeply honest essays, seven women present humorous, poignant, and revealing accounts of their own adolescent friendships.
Readers may feel less fearful after learning how liberating it was for one writer to move away from a clique with whom she had little in common. Or perhaps they will come to terms with the idea that beauty sometimes comes with a price. Some will identify with the rebel in all of us as captured in a couple of the essays, or the odd experience of being thrown together with a stranger. Readers will be introduced to the ultimate parting in a friendship: the death of a loved friend. Many will understand the despair and confusion when a friend inexplicably moves on and the relief that follows when a new one steps in to take her place.
This anthology is a powerful profile of teen girls and of the complex and rewarding nature of friendship.
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Susan Musgrave is a poet, novelist, children's writer, essayist, and columnist. Her last edited collection for teen girls, Nerves Out Loud: Critical Moments in the Lives of Seven Teen Girls, met with critical acclaim. She lives on Vancouver Island with her two daughters.
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The well-written pieces capture the joy and the hurt, the fun and the responsibility, and the memories shared .. This book will resonate with readers ... A valuable addition.
As a collection of stories for adult readers reliving the moments of their teenage years, I would recommend this book.
There's no straining for lyricism -- just frank reminiscences whose specificity engenders a quality of universality.
