Laurie's Song (Sweet Dreams)

Even its trite, lackluster opening can't doom Laurie's Song, a surprisingly perceptive tale about adjusting to the newfound pressures of high school, while struggling to maintain one's own sense of "self." Protagonist and narrator Laurie Adams is a refreshing antidote to the shallow teenage girls so often depicted in pop culture; she worries not only about finding a boyfriend, but, as she ultimately discovers, also about being true to her own interests and striking a balance between her academic, social, familial, and extracurricular aspirations. The plot, which depicts Laurie's stormy romances with moody rocker Skip Reardon and studious nice guy Jeff Aldridge, ultimately takes a back seat to the starkly realistic characterizations that raise the novel above mediocrity. Because no character, including Laurie herself, is either sainted or vilified, the evolutions of even the novel's minor characters are noteworthy. The only slightly grating aspect of the novel is the utmost seriousness with which it treats each of Laurie's teenage crises, as though each episode is some epic moment that will forever change her life. Despite this minor tendency toward melodrama, the novel still offers a flawed, but likeable heroine and an ending that shows respect both to the reader and to Laurie herself.

Even though this book can be predictable, it's also well-written. The characters seem real, the plot seems real, and Laurie's reactions to the situation make a lot of sense. Sometimes it didn't seem very realistic, but do books have to be? That's the fun in reading. The book describes everything well and the outcome makes sense, although it's predictable.

I enjoyed this "teen angst" book very much...even though it follows along the fairly typical patterns of the SWEET DREAMS series - upper-middle-class White respectability, sexual innocence more suited to a few decades prior, drugs non-existent - it has more interesting, quirky characters than most, an undeniable coming-of-age sweetness, & an appealing first-person narrator in the form of Laurie, a bookworm trying her wings as a cool high school glamour chick. Lessons are learned all around. Is this story realistic? Not really, but the charm in these books is that they rarely are...the formula is there, the happy ending is assured, but the characters do undergo the teen anxieties of peer pressure, first love & bounding back from mistakes that we can (mostly) all relate to. Laurie's best friend was sort of a horror show for most of this story - a rather snippy, selfish, shallow, unsympathetic girl who makes a near-unbelievable return to "normal" at the very end as well, but this wasn't enough to wreck this enjoyable & fairly compelling teen tale.

This book gave you perfect deatails. They totally described the character well. Your heart just melted when you read it! Skip sounded really cute, so did Jeff. When you read it you will find out who they are. I encourage you to read!