Pretty Little Dirty

February 6, 2006
Girlhood friends bolt from their innocence with a mixture of eagerness, ignorance and regret in this winning coming-of-age saga, told with candor and aptitude. In 1976, Lisa and Celeste move, from Chicago and New York respectively, to Kansas City, Mo., and enter sixth grade. Celeste is a blinding beauty; Lisa, who narrates, jumps readily into the welcome of Celeste's picture-perfect family, eager to efface her own dark home life. The girls mark every milestone together, from wilderness camp and first kisses to dances, drinks and loss of virginity. By the middle of high school, boys, and the real power a girl might wield over them, spawn ravenous sexual appetites in both. Their search for new summer conquests leads them to the edgy world of older art school students and '80s punk rock, each experiment with sex and drugs opening a new door onto another. Celeste and Lisa turn down paths marked by danger signs visible from a great distance, yet Lisa's voice is absolutely immediate. Shocking in its casual erotic frankness and enlightening in its drawing of shallow relationships, this novel gets the complexity of childhood friendships dead right, as well as their importance in shaping who one becomes.

February 15, 2006
Set in the late 1970s and early 1980s, this dire coming-of-age story follows two best friends from their awkward midwestern middle-school days through their increasingly self-destructive West Coast college years. When reserved 11-year-old Lisa helps beautiful, charismatic Celeste cheat on the placement exam at a prestigious prep school, their bond as partners in crime is firmly established. Celeste's family practically adopts Lisa when they learn that her mother, depressed and overly medicated, spends most of her time shut away in the bedroom. Whip smart and adventurous, the teenagers take up with a bohemian crowd at the local art school and are quickly introduced to sex and alcohol by an older sculpture professor. But they graduate from blender drinks to far more serious toxic substances when they hit the West Coast. This is the fictional equivalent of the highlight reel from the " Girls Gone Wild" videos, with a soundtrack courtesy of such iconic punk bands as Iggy Pop and X. All the debauchery feels a bit forced, but the girls' intense, symbiotic bond is drawn with precision.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)