A review by kricketa
Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger
3.0
For the first 3/4 of this book, I didn't like it at all. Something (homework avoidance?) kept me plodding along until the ending, which I liked a lot better than the rest.
John Galardi, high school junior and zine writer, comes from a broken Boston-area home. During the week he lives with his depressed mother, who refuses to touch him, and on weekends he visits his cold selfish father and distributes copies of his zine at the nearby Tower Records. (yeah, the concept of a print zine is kind of dated- if the book were written today it'd probably be a blog). It is in this Tower Records that he meets the brilliant and beautiful Marisol, a fellow zine writer whose work he admires. She writes honestly about her experiences as a Puerto Rican adoptee and a lesbian. They become friends in a wobbly sort of way, exploring writing, music, and becoming honest with each other.
John's parents seemed like parodies of parents and a lot of the gay characters in the book were written like parodies of gay characters. But I still want to read Wittlinger's new book, Parrotfish.
John Galardi, high school junior and zine writer, comes from a broken Boston-area home. During the week he lives with his depressed mother, who refuses to touch him, and on weekends he visits his cold selfish father and distributes copies of his zine at the nearby Tower Records. (yeah, the concept of a print zine is kind of dated- if the book were written today it'd probably be a blog). It is in this Tower Records that he meets the brilliant and beautiful Marisol, a fellow zine writer whose work he admires. She writes honestly about her experiences as a Puerto Rican adoptee and a lesbian. They become friends in a wobbly sort of way, exploring writing, music, and becoming honest with each other.
John's parents seemed like parodies of parents and a lot of the gay characters in the book were written like parodies of gay characters. But I still want to read Wittlinger's new book, Parrotfish.