Jezebel
fine lines
The Long Secret: CSI: Puberty
Welcome to 'Fine Lines', the Friday feature in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wrinkled look at the children's and YA books we loved in our youth. This week, writer/reviewer/blogger Lizzie Skurnick rereads 'The Long Secret', Louise Fitzhugh's 1965 sequel to 'Harriet The Spy', in which Honorary (Junior) Jezebel Harriet M. Welsch attempts to figure out the mystery of her best friend, Beth, during a summer on Long Island.
The notes were appearing everywhere.At the end of the day, is our instinctive dislike of modern teen chick lit — the unholy spawn of Sweet Valley High, Bridget Jones, and Sex and the City, IMHO — fundamentally due to its craven attachment to AmEx and snagging hotties? (For years, the publishing biz has unofficially dubbed the adult wing of the genre "Shopping and Fucking.") As I read back through my YA library, I am starting to wonder if it may just be that all this saddle-stitched vapidity actually misses the point. Traditionally, in women's fiction, from Little Women to The Women's Room, the spotlight has been squarely on what goes down between the, you know, women. (It's in the titles and everything!) But as The Group begat Golden Girls begat Gossip Girls, we've lost the most important font of all drama.
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