Getting Over Jack Wagner

March 15, 2003
Juska's first novel is as light and winning as a 1980s love song--and in its own way, as earnest. Eliza Simon is a 26-year-old copywriter who feels that life and love are passing her by. When she's not avoiding family dinners with her perfect sister, Camilla, or dissecting TV reruns with her friend Andrew, Eliza is writing a semiautobiographical book about dating "rock stars"--which for Eliza means everyone from Jack Wagner to the moody drummer who won her heart at the high-school talent show. In a series of hilarious (and sometimes painful) flashbacks, Eliza reminisces about the rock stars she has known and loved, including, of course, Jack Wagner, whose image she lovingly steamed onto a T-shirt when she was in the fifth grade. Juska's references to 1980s girlhood are perfect, as when Eliza remembers herself on a date with a high-school boyfriend "dressed in some senseless combination of long underwear and men's boxer shorts." A funny and endearing addition to the "single girl in the city" genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)