Monday, March 30, 2009

Book 22 of 52 -- Laura Pedersen's Going Away Party



I dove into this after enjoying Pedersen's wonderfully heartbreaking but humorous novel "Last Call."

Now we move from Brooklyn, NY, to the Midwest.

Anyone who has ever been a teenager or attempted to raise one will love "Going Away Party," which sums up so many of the conflicts inherent in coming of age today.

Technology and the high cost of education have changed the landscape and not always for the better.

It also contains a romance with an age difference that serves to show how our perspective on life changes as we mature.

What I especially enjoyed was that drugs, abuse, and violence were not needed to make the passage to adulthood dramatic and fraught.

It's angst filled enough without those and Pedersen also uses deft humor to keep things moving toward a surprising and touching ending.

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