Maureen Daly (1) (1921–2006)

“When I eat, everything tastes so good I can't get all the taste out of it; when I look at something-say, the lake-the waves are so green and the foam so white that it seems I can't look at it hard enough; there seems to be something there that I can't get at. And even when I'm with you, I can't seem to be with you...enough.”
― Maureen Daly, Seventeenth Summer

This is about first love for a 17 year old teenager in the 1940's. I read it as a kid. It really is pure YA and is a coming of age story as well as a romance .

I happen to love the way it is written. The story takes place in Wisconsin and meadows, streams, green green grass and the smell of summer time are all around. I like descriptive writing and I like to feel as if I am living in the pages with the characters.

Angie and Jack's relationship is not always the main focus as there is much that happens. This was an early read for me and one I still remember quite fondly.… (mais)

It was really hard to get into this one, but I decided to picture Angie as a young Katherine Hepburn, and that helped me stay in the right era (well, almost).

As a historical artifact, this book shows so much about gender roles and expectations, and class issues of the time. It also displays the kind of simplistic, rosy atmosphere of the literature for young people 65 years ago. However, I don't necessarily think that this book needs to be relegated to the archives just yet. While the characters are extraordinarily bland, much detail and description is given to the landscape. Also, the overly melodramatic tone of Angie's thoughts is sure to appeal to readers the way that Anne Shirley's and Jo March's do.

Seventeen Summer makes an excellent read-together with The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Lockhart), because it perfectly represents the world that Frankie is so ardently rebelling against.

In the end, I found myself becoming rather sentimental about ol' Angie and Jack, very much the way I might when watching old movies. As contemporary fiction, this book is rather appalling; but as historical fiction, I think it still works.… (mais)