This week, if the library were a compendium of internet memes, it would have whispered, "Hey girl...I hear you like books, so here are some books...about books." Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction by Gabrielle Moss is not just a book about books, but a time machine back to the literary classics of my childhood.
Paperback Crush first appeared on my radar this past summer, and quite a few of us in a book discussion forum I'm part of freaked out. A book about all the books we devoured as tweens and teens? Bring. It. ON. We were stoked, and so when I was reminded of this book the other day, I looked it up and was overjoyed to discover that at that very moment, there was a copy waiting for me in the New Books section of my local library. Off we went.
Gabrielle Moss has painstakingly cataloged a just-shy-of-exhaustive history of those books you inhaled during the '80s and '90s, with photos of the covers splashed across the neon-colored pages. She details the popularity of series books in these decades, most of which I at least remembered, with the exception of the NEATE Series (published by Just Us Books; I hadn't heard of them, but I enjoyed reading Ms. Moss's write-up of the company's history and mission and will be on the lookout for their books from now on). She also points out that many series books were written by authors who went on to bigger and better things, such as Candice Ransom, Eileen Goudge (I loved her in my early 20's), Katherine Applegate (who would go on to win the Newbery award for The One and Only Ivan), and even Christopher Pike and R. L. Stine before their days as masters of teen horror (I had no idea Stine also wrote under the pen name Jovial Bob Stine; I owned one of his books as a kid).
These years were the decades of the series: romance series, series about sleepaway camp, sports-themed series (baseball! Horses!), horror/thriller series, chronic/terminal illness series (hellooooooooooo, Lurlene McDaniel!), boarding school series, and series about friend groups where each friend had one defining characteristic (the bossy one; the artsy one; the one whose personality was that she was originally from New York City or California, because of course). There's a lot of rightful bagging on the Sweet Valley High series, which I was thrilled to read- I'd read so many of the Twins and High books as a kid and always thought Jessica was a Grade-A swamp witch as well, so I appreciated Ms Moss being able to see the Wakefield twins' lives for what they were: a high-drama soap opera for teens in novel form.
This book also brought back authors I hadn't thought of in years but who made up a formative part of my youth (Barthe DeClements, whose first name I'm still unsure of how to pronounce! Paula Danziger!), and books that I read that were probably entirely age inappropriate but I scarfed them down anyway (eleven probably wasn't the best age to read and reread a novel about teen prostitution/trafficking, right? Steffie Can't Come Out to Play by Fran Arrick, if you missed that one). And holy cow, I'd completely forgotten that Slam Book was written by Ann M. Martin (of the Babysitters Club fame). That was another one that I read and reread at probably ten or eleven, despite the gruesome depiction of a suicide. Cripes, no wonder I developed such fierce insomnia as a teenager. I especially appreciated the love she showed Norma Klein, who was one of my favorite authors for years. Klein was always overshadowed by Judy Blume, but her books were just as monumental in introducing topics such as sex and abortion into teen lit (which I read well before my teen years. Thank you, used bookstores!).
And I was surprised by the chapter on middle grade and YA horror; I hadn't realized how much of that I read during those years, but nearly every cover on the pages was familiar to me. I haven't read all that much horror as an adult, and I don't care for thrillers, so I'm trying to figure out why I stopped reading that genre so much. Did I get my fill? Could no one take the place of Christopher Pike (whose real name is Kevin McFadden?!?!? I had no idea!)? I'm going to have to think about this some more, and maybe look into picking up a book or two with a more supernatural flair.
The only criticism I have for this book is that it ended fairly abruptly, and that it ended at all. I would've loved for this book to continue on endlessly, drowning me in wave after wave of nostalgia for the long days of my childhood where I never had to worry about dishes or scrubbing out the toilet or chronic pain, and where a trip to Waldenbooks meant coming home to spend the rest of the day holed up in my room, nose stuffed in the latest offerings of whatever author was my current favorite. If you're around my age (I'm 38) and you spent your youth guzzling books like I did, you absolutely cannot miss this book. Beg, borrow...maybe not steal, but find yourself a copy, because this book is an utter delight.
Side note: I don't often make note of publishers, but I did notice Paperback Crush is published by Quirk Books, whom I've loved ever since I reviewed an ARC of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith for them years ago (and laughed until I was sobbing in the McDonald's PlayPlace while my son played). They've consistently come out with awesome stuff, and Paperback Crush is yet another example.
Check out Gabrielle Moss's website here.
Follow her on Twitter here.
