The Cure for Crushes: (and Other Deadly Plagues) - Softcover

Grade 10 Up–In this follow-up novel to The Healing Time of Hickeys (Raincoast, 2004), readers are once again led in a diary format through the trials and tribulations of Haley Andromeda Harmony, high school senior. Haley has a lot going on during part two of The Greatest Year of My Life (TGYML): she has a boyfriend, really nice Brad, whom she keeps avoiding; her bestish friends, flawless Jules and sympathetic Kiki, are getting on her nerves–no, they're not–uh, yes, they are–well, sometimes, anyway; and she does not, absolutely does not, still have a crush on JT (the one that gorgeous Jules wound up with, of course!). Her aged, perennially jobless, hippie Dad has, ugh, an MYG (Much Younger Girlfriend)! If all that weren't enough, a party faux pas, weekend mishaps, birthday-party bungee-jumping in mid-winter (in Canada, no less!), broken limbs, devastated self-esteem, over-dyed hair, and non-cooperative horoscopes all conspire to make Haley's TGYML an ongoing disaster. The teen's relentless self-denigration is grating, and readers might be tempted to suggest that she choose her friends more carefully. Nevertheless, those who find confessional, self-deprecating, wildly over-the-top, teen chick lit entertaining will embrace this novel. More discerning readers will get more bang for the buck from Louise Rennison's clever series, beginning with the legendary Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (HarperCollins, 2000). The British manage to present the absurd, zany, self-absorbed teen novel formula with tongue firmly in cheek–something North American writers haven't quite achieved yet.–Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green
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