The Summer of Naked Swim Parties

February 25, 2008
In this debut novel, Blau addresses the coming-of-age of a young girl as she navigates her way through the confusion of adolescence. Fourteen-year-old Jamie lives in Santa Barbara with her 16-year-old sister, Renee, and their parents, Allen and Betty, two swinging, pot-smoking, part-time nudists. It's 1976 and Jamie isn't altogether comfortable with her parents' lifestyle, while Renee turns to straighter neighbors for a surrogate family. Overly anxious Jamie ends up with Flip, the cutest surfer in town. Before long they have progressed way beyond kissing, and Allen and Betty's casual ways result in a disaster that turn the family into pariahs in their middle-class neighborhood. Blau understands the mating rituals of 1970s teens, and she reproduces their mindless chatter with ease. Unfortunately, not all of the characters are fully realized; the adults, generally treated more obliquely, give off no more than hints of character. It's obvious that their excessive hedonism will eventually cause tragedy, so the book does have a growing dread that blossoms in the third quarter, but the reader may be left with the impression that all this ground has been covered before.

April 15, 2008
Move over, summer of love. Here comes the summer of naked swim parties. Fourteen-year-old Jamies free-spirited parents enjoy smoking pot and swimming, naked, in the backyard of their Santa Barbara home with their friends and neighbors. For Jamie and older sister Ren'e this is more embarrassing than exciting (so many floppy adult appendagesyuck); but Jamies new boyfriend, the vacuous Flip, seems to enjoy itespecially the pot. But things will changethis is a coming-of-age novel, after alland virginity will be lost, Flip will flop, death will cast a pall over those parties, and Jamies best friends, Debbie and Tammy (Cruella-De-Villes in training bras), will betray her. This is all pretty predictable, but Blau, dealing with semiautobiographical material, knows adolescence inside out; and, though seldom subtle, she skewers what needs skewering and celebrates the rest with humor, style, and an appropriate degree of affection.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)