In attempting to catch up with the blogging (after catching up on sleep after my - hee hee - delightful weekend), I remembered that I had signed up for Lex's awesome Mini Book Expo for Bloggers. I chose to read Bleed by Laurie Faria Stolarz, because I enjoy knowing what the teens are up to. Turns out they're up to sex and a little self-mutilation.
I think that I would really have enjoyed Bleed as a teen - it was a little sexy, a little racy and was written in what I read as a very authentic teen voice. I enjoyed it much more as an adult, because it reminded me of how much it sucked to be a teen and how glad I am that I am not one anymore.
Bleed is essentially a series of short stories which are all connected or rather bleed into one another and come full circle at the end. There's the girl who contrives to bed her best friend's boyfriend - there's the girl who's not complete until she's managed to get all her good friends to draw blood on her skin - the guy who's just looking for a connection but ends up being taken for a ride by a flaky girl - the bitter junior who wants revenge on the popular girl who mocked her - and, of course, your typical jailbait love story between a guy who's in prison for killing his girlfriend and the girl who's sympathetic to his cause - after all, he was, like, REALLY in love with her.
The book covers, but does not try to solve or explain, a myriad of teen issues like the sex, the cutting, the pervert live-in uncle, the eating disorder, the tyranny of parents, the jock who wants to wear a dress and the delusional convict fantasy. I'm not gonna lie to you - it was funny in parts and definitely well-written but mainly kind of bleak. The teen Roro would have given Bleed full marks, which I suppose is the important thing. The adult Roro wanted to send all the characters to a therapist.
