I read this book mid—1980s. It may have been from the 1970s though.
I can’t remember the MC’s name but she was the younger sister of a popular girl who was also a perfectionist. The MC borrows a blouse without her sister’s knowledge and stains it. MC has a boyfriend called Ryan. In the end both sisters are sort of envious of the other.
I know this is pretty vague but I hope someone remembers it!
I read this back in high school in the early 2000s (2001-2005). I remember the book had a cream color, with browns and oranges depicting a scene of some futuristic landscape or something similar. The aesthetic felt very 1970s.
The story is a post-apocalyptic story, which is revealed partway through the story. The protagonist is a female, whose caregiver is non-human, female, and has feline traits. The protagonist and her caretaker live in a facility with another member of the caretaker’s species, a male.
The protagonist has vague memories of another human, and as the novel progresses, it’s revealed that the male caretaker is raising a boy, and that the girl and the boy used to play together as babies, until the boy hit the girl, and the caretakers separated them, fearing the violence that destroyed human society had already started.
The boy and the girl, who are both teens at this point, eventually meet again, and begin a friendship. At one point, the boy suggests having sex, and explains he has a contraceptive in his body so there’s no risk of pregnancy, but the girl declines.
The caretakers’ species process the flow of time differently than humans, with the metaphor used later on being that to humans, time is a series of rooms that you can only go forward through, but can look back through past doors and rooms, while the caretakers’ species experience it as entering a room, and all the other doors close behind them.
It’s discovered that the boy’s parents died before they could come back for his embryo, but the girl’s parents decided they didn’t want her anymore. Later on, the caretakers leave after having spent more time together, only to reunite near the end of the book, while the teens set off to explore the world outside the facility.
They eventually find an old, possibly ancient, database? that tells them about the apocalypse, and somehow, there’s a signal sent out? that brings a ship in to land where the teens are camping. On board are the caretakers, some of their people, and the descendants of those humans who were alive when the caretakers’ species arrived. I remember the spokesman for the humans on the ship had yellow eyes.
If anyone has any leads, I’d be grateful.
Okay, these ones have been haunting me for years:
Marlene is described as “tough as old boots,” and the main character initially dislikes her because she’s so different from her usual circle of friends. At one point, Marlene saves up enough money to buy a piece of horse equipment, a martingale, used for training. Despite her background, Marlene shows a natural talent with horses and may even become a better rider than the main character, jealously abounds! The story is bittersweet: when Marlene’s stay ends, she must return to her difficult life in the city, while the main character continues her comfortable, privileged existence.
’m so excited to have found your page! Here’s as much as I can remember about the story I’m searching for. The main character is a teenage girl who is a bit overweight, she has a best friend who is ambitious and pretty and often pretends to be more than she is. They go on a vacation together near the water. One day, on their way to take the friend’s small skiff out for a boat ride, they encounter a good looking boy. He asks if they have a boat and the friend who is pretending to be more than she is, points to a larger more impressive boat and says that’s hers. The main character is mortified. It turns out later the boat belongs to the boy’s family. The friend pursues the boy aggressively but he ends up fancying the main character. The main character, from walking the beach mist every day finds at the end of the vacation that she has lost weight. I also remember she describes her friend as having toenails painted a clear orange red.
I’ve searched in so many places for this story. I really want to share it with one of my granddaughters.
Thanks for any help you can provide!
I can’t remember the name of this book. Here’s what I remember:
Set in Budapest during WW2
A girl protagonist
She had to eat a horse so as to not starve. Or there was threat of eating horse.
Thanks for any help!
Book is set in the 70s. Possibly early 80s. I would have read it in the around 93 or 94 I think.
MC’s dad got divorced and moved them from NYC to LA. The dad gets a perm and start wearing his shirts unbuttoned and doing EST – he’s basically having a post divorce identity crisis. They live in an apartment complex.
There is a woman who lives there who is way older than the son (who is a high school senior) and hits on him which makes him very uncomfortable. At one point she joins him in the hot tub in their apartment complex and says something in reference to her long fingernails like “wouldn’t you like to feel these in the hairs on your chest” and he is both grossed out/a little turned on/ and thinking her doesn’t have any chest hair. He then wonders what happens in that hot tub and doesn’t want to use it anymore.
His best friend is a movie star’s son who’s dad is never named. The best friend has a very California name like Kip or something. I think. Kip straight up buys him a muscle car and he loves the car. He has to learn to drive because he is from NYC.
He meets this girl who turns him on to feminism and blows his mind. At one point they are lying on the beach together and he is admiring his car and she is looking at the ocean. He says something like “ohhhh those curves! Those headlights!” And she says “hey I thought we agreed it wasn’t ok to objectify women’s bodies like that” and then realizes he is absolutely talking about his car.
There is a scene where his dad meets his girlfriend’s mom (who is also a NYC transplant) and they hit it off and he asks to call her and for some reason he mentions leaving them a message and the mother and daughter say in unison “we don’t believe in answering machines”
There is another moment when the girlfriend is talking about letting her leg hair grow out and she mentions she loves feeling these wind in it.
The book ends with him deciding to go to Berkeley in the fall and to live with her there.
Any ideas? It’s been bouncing in my head for years. Help me banish this memory demon!
I recall reading this book in the mid 70s. It was a chapter book about an eccentric family who moves the entire contents of their house out to the lawn in the first chapter, just because it was a nice day and why not. More things happened in subsequent chapters, but this is all I can recall. I think the whole gist was they were lovable iconoclasts. I was enrolled in a book series where they’d send a new book to read every week in the early to mid 70s. I think it was one of those. I’m not sure I can recall the cover art accurately but I remember it giving comforting pastoral vibes so probably pastel dominant.
I would have read these in the mid to late 80’s but the books might be older
Book 1 is a story about an adolescent boy whose parents own a bakery, I believe called the Sunshine Bakery, because at some point in the story there is a fire and the sign melts to read “Unshine Bakery”. The mom, a little hysterically points out how funny that is to the protagonist’s best friend who replies that he doesn’t think it is very funny at all. The best friend also plays the piano and sings a song at some point with the lyrics that I can remember being “There’s a curse on your family and it fell on you, you’re one ugly duckling you’re my honey chile”. The boys might play ice hockey but I could be confusing that with other books as I read a lot of books about hockey at that time.
Book 2 is a weird one and I only have a vague memory of it. A group of teens are at a boarding school and go on a camping trip. They get lost or stranded or something and I feel like someone is after them. The weirdest part is that one of the students starts a relationship with one of the teachers and they go skinny dipping. I remember this part of the the book being from the teachers POV and describing scrubbing the girls’ body and how it made him happy to know it belonged to him. It was not a smutty book otherwise, a typical teen thriller from what I remember and I know this section weirded me out as a kid as it seemed very out of place. I feel like there was also a part of the book where they had to get weapons to defend themself and a bow and arrow was mentioned.
Solved! The Grounding of Group 6 by Julian Thompson.
This book centers around a young female protagonist (I think middle-school age) who learns to bake bread and struggles in science class. At one memorable point, she uses mayonnaise in her hair because she heard it’s a good conditioner. She has both an older sister and younger brother. Near the end of the book, she is able to do a bread making demonstration for a science fair/science assignment.
I believe I read it somewhere between 2005-2009, but the cultural references in the book make me think it was from the 90’s or early 2000’s?
Note from Molly: this one is on the tip of tongue, I definitely recognize the mayo-conditioner plot!
I have been looking for this book for so many years I’m starting to believe I made it up, lol. So the following is what I remember:
It had to be published before or around1990 and I would have read it at about the same time, but I definitely read it before 1994/1995 (the time I moved after a house fire and lost track of it.) It was a part of a three pack of books sold in Kmart or some other store, but not a bookstore, and included in the package were Light a Single Candle- by Beverly Butler and The Legend of Daisy Flowerdew- By Patricia Pendergraft (but it is not by either of these authors as far as I have been able to find). I believe the first line is something along the lines of “the first thing I noticed were his eyes…” and it was in the first-person perspective of a teen girl. She was talking about the new boy in class, who was a French exchange student, I believe, that drove an MG or other convertible car. I also think his last name was Rocher or Rochet. Anyway, the plot follows this girl and boy’s relationship until he tragically dies in a car crash and then about how she deals with his death. It was a kind of sad coming of age story, which is why I think it was packaged with those other two. I hope you can help me solve this mystery!
Lost Classics of Teen Lit: Name That Book! 