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In a convoluted series of word-of-mouth recommendations, a friend of my sister’s suggested that since she’d enjoyed Sarah Dessen’s latest (The Truth About Forever) she might like Megan McCafferty’s books. My sister picked up the first book in this series, Sloppy Firsts, plowed through it in a day and then gobbled up the sequel, Second Helpings. Then she called me. “Marcus Flutie – Sa-woon!” she exclaimed, and began to chatter on for about thirty minutes about how funny and romantic these books were. (To me, the uninitiated reader, it sounded something like “Blah blah blah…Marcus Flutie…blah blah..Marcus Flutie…blah blah blah…and then Marcus Flutie….)
Alrighty, then, I thought. Got to pick up these books. So I interloaned the first, ripped through it in the night and ran to the bookstore for the second. I can’t remember the last time I did that.
Contrary to previous implication, these books aren’t about one Marcus Flutie. They are diary fiction along the lines of Bridget Jones’s Diary, only the author, Jessica Darling, isn’t flaky, or British, or thirtysomething. She’s a New Jersey high school honor student experiencing the pressures of being a teen in the New Millenium. And Jane Purdy (from Beverly Cleary’s Fiftenn) she’s not. When Sloppy Firsts begins, Jessica is about to start the second semester of her sophomore year, and her best friend Hope Weaver has just moved away. Hope’s brother, Heath, has just died of a drug overdose, and Hope’s parents have moved themselves out of the toxic atmosphere of Pineville, NJ pronto. Jessica is devastated.
Since Jessica’s friendship with Hope was so tight, she didn’t notice that all her other friendships were basically meaningless. She knew her friends were lame and sometimes cruel, but it didn’t matter – until that’s all she has. The girls she calls “The Clueless Crew” consist of 1) beautiful, wannabe model Bridget, dethroned best friend from elementary school, 2) Manda, skanky virgin who will do everything but that, if you’re an upperclassman, that is, and 3) Sara, the richest girl in Pineville and the biggest gossip. Jessica hates them all. To avoid being with them too often she concentrates on running track and writing to Hope. She has other problems, too. Her perfect older sister Bethany is marrying her rich boyfriend, Scotty, Jessica’s boyfriend from eighth grade, wants her back, and Marcus Flutie, class dreg whom everyone calls “Krispy Kreme” because he’s always krispy (drugs) and is rumored to have had 3 dozen donuts (girls) has suddenly taken an unexpected and alarming interest in her.
The two books are very hard to examine separately, since they flow so smoothly together, involve the same characters, and take place over a relatively short period of time (two and a half years). Also, Jessica’s humor and sarcasm builds on itself, so, for instance, her dismay at discovering something about Prof. “Mac” MacDougall in Second Helpings isn’t nearly as funny if you haven’t read through the Paul Parlipiano angst in Sloppy Firsts. The books must be read in order to get the full effect.
Also, those readers eyeing the “Young Adult” classification above should know that this is not fiction for the very young at heart. Jessica’s friends are pretty obsessed with sex, and just about everyone who hasn’t lost her virginity at the onset of Sloppy Firsts has by the end of Second Helpings. There’s no on-screen humping and pumping, but there is a lot of frank talk, including swearing, about the various sexual alternatives. These kids are not in the dark about sex. Drugs and alcohol also make cameo appearances in Jessica’s drama.
One of the ways this book stands out in Young Adult fiction is that it’s not about learning and growing and becoming a Better Person. There’s no lesson that everyone has learned at the end of thirty minutes. Jessica is just as cynical in the second book as she was in the first. The characters do change over the course of their high school experiences, but that’s primarily because people do change over time. In the beginning of Sloppy Firsts Jessica is more or less clinically depressed over the loss of her best friend. Over time she goes on to create for herself a stronger friend base and she does wind up happier and somewhat more upbeat, but her depression dissipates in a normal, believable way. It’s not like – BAM – she meets a guy or makes a new friend, and Hope is forgotten. Her friendship with Hope is a focal (and organizational) point in the books, and it remains constant throughout.
Jessica’s high school female friendships are the antithesis of the Four Friends fiction that is so en vogue right now. Bridget, Manda, Sara, and Jessica have uneasy and changing relationships characterized by competition, jealousy, gossip, and occasional backstabbing. Jessica does eventually find emotional support, however, and from surprising sources. One of the larger themes in the first book is that people aren’t always what you assume them to be.
Jessica is a very strong heroine. She is an excellent student, a talented runner, and a gifted writer, but most interestingly, she is a gimlet-eyed spectator of the theater around her. She prides herself on being able to suss the truth out of lies and hypocrisy, to puncture pretension and pomposity, and she is utterly without mercy for those who are full of themselves or dishonest about their motives. She’ll tell them, right to their faces, what she thinks of them. It makes for interesting reading.
The most intriguing drama in Jessica’s life is Marcus Flutie, however. Marcus pushes all of Jessica’s buttons, but she doesn’t know how to push his back. In the rigid caste system that is high school, Marcus is a dreg – a burnout. He did drugs with Hope’s brother, which makes him despicable in Jessica’s eyes. But Marcus is more than a label. He sees through her like she sees through everyone else, and he dares her to be different. Her first life-altering experience with Marcus comes when he asks her to pee in a yogurt cup for him. His parole officer has shown up unexpectedly, and he needs a clean sample. He dares her to do it, and to show him up, she does. But this deception backfires on both of them. Eventually Marcus repays the favor, but not in a comforting way. Everything about him is different from other boys, and Jess finds herself at a loss. She can’t stop thinking about him. She can’t stop calling him up at midnight for hour-long chats. She can’t stop wondering if all the rumors about Krispy Kreme are true.
Marcus also goes through a bit of a transformation through the two books, but because he is so self-assured, so absolutely certain of himself and his perceptions, he changes less than the other characters. His friendship with Jessica is the only thing to cause him a moment of doubt or regret. She puts him in the wringer and cranks it. It takes the most grand, glorious of all great romantic gestures to get through to her what he feels. And what a gesture! My heart goes pitter pat just thinking about it. If only this guy weren’t fictional.
Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings are funny, insightful, romantic additions to the coming-of-age genre that is YA lit. They are filled with characters that are large than life and, at the same time, life-like. I lost an entire weekend reading Jessica’s thoughts, musings, and frustrations, and when the books were done, I sighed with contentment and then flipped back to read all the Marcus Flutie parts again. I can’t ask for much more than that from a reading experience. McCafferty’s website states there will eventually be a third book in this series (scheduled for 2006). I’ll be sure to pre-order my copy as soon as Amazon lists it.
Grade: A
Book Type: Young Adult
Sensuality: Subtle
Review Date: 17/08/04
Publication Date: 2001
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Recent Comments …
Yep
This sounds delightful! I’m grabbing it, thanks
excellent book: interesting, funny dialogs, deep understanding of each character, interesting secondary characters, and also sexy.
I don’t think anyone expects you to post UK prices – it’s just a shame that such a great sale…
I’m sorry about that. We don’t have any way to post British prices as an American based site.
I have several of her books on my TBR and after reading this am moving them up the pile.