Sloppy Firsts and The Girl’s Guide have a lot in common. They have a strong female protagonist who is on a path to self-discovery. Do you feel you have a lot in common with these characters?
I feel neurotic like both of them. I have felt awkward like them. Jessica is pretty darn cool, and whether she likes it or not…she is thin and pretty and popular. In those ways, I am nothing like her. She kind of reminds me of the girl on the edge of the “cool group” that you always meant to talk to but never did. I was able to relate with Jane Rosenal automatically. She double guesses herself, and practices stories in her head before she relays them to her suitor. I think that is a great way to describe Jessica! She is a lot cooler than she thinks she is.
In Sloppy Firsts, I liked the format of the book. It is reading the diary and I liked how the chapters were dates and the book was divided up into months.
Me too! It made the character really relatable I found. As if you found her letters/diary wedged under a loose floorboard. Or if you were her best friend Hope, and those letters were for you. Megan McCafferty wrote a perspective from Hope’s pov that has since been removed from the interweb. Too bad, I really found myself wondering if Hope existed at all! I also wondered if she returned Jessica’s passion for correspondence and wanted to keep in touch as badly.
I like to think that’s she’s a good a pen pal as Jessica is.
When you were younger, did you have a friend that moved away? What about a penpal? I don’t think I could ever keep up that correspondence with a friend when I was that age. Every attempt to maintain contact with a pen pal was quickly abandoned, although I do know one or two people who did manage to keep it up.
I always wished for a penpal in my early years. I wasn’t dedicated enough. When I moved from Scarborough in the sixth grade, I worked up enough courage to ask my crush, Andrew Perriccioli, if he wanted to be my penpal…back then it was so much better than a boyfriend. It meant he would have to write something other than school work, and write something just for you. I kept it up for a few months, but then it petered out. I have since matured, thankfully, and now have two lovely penpals. Oooh, fun!Can you tell us a little about that? How do you even get a penpal?
I found my pen pal from livejournal, I really liked her sense of humour mainly and asked her outright. The others are friends that have moved away.
This is just the first book in the series, have you read the others? Please tell me it gets better for her! I was reading Sloppy Firsts and I think the author really did a great job of evoking the same emotions in me. It really brought me back to school and how I felt at times, trying to please parents, friends, yourself. I don’t know if I want to feel that way again!
I have read all five in the series. I like it because Jessica’s voice changes slightly with each book. She experiences new things and new situations and steps out of her New Jersey bubble. I think it was the third or fourth book that made my blood boil so furiously, I hucked the book across the room. Not because I hated it…I’ve done that, but because I felt so deeply for the situation and the way things have evolved. Nice! I think I’ll stick with it then.
Speaking of evoking strong emotions, The Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing did the same thing for me. The frustration of being in a relationship with someone you love, but can’t see forever with. The subtle mind-games, the uncertainty. Again, the author manages to write in a way that evokes a lot of emotion. Why do you think women can relate so much to the character of Jane?
I felt that it was mainly “The Rules” that can lead the ladies to relate. Or “Cosmopolitan”, always telling us “how to land that man”, “how to make him want you”, and so on and so forth. We are conditioned to listen to this, and to take these “words of wisdom” into consideration.
There are so many different ways to meet people nowadays, but relationships seem to be the same. What are some of the ways you have tried to meet people (if you don’t mind sharing)?
I haven’t had the greatest of luck. I hang out with a group mostly considering of men, which one would think…”hey, right on…BOYFRIEND CITY”. No. It does not work that way in my case. I love each and everyone of them, but sometimes you can be too close and know things that would kill any kind of romantic interest. I work fairly long days, and have a longer commute, and am not at all interested in the bar scene. The internet has worked in fits and spurts, it comes in waves normally. It’s kind of working now…but I won’t go into detail as not to jinx anything. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for this new interest!
Haha, me too!
Join us tomorrow for the second part of this discussion!
Yeah, That Just Happened!
