The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan

How might reading about young people who use art in crafting their identities help these students better negotiate their real worlds and find a place where they fit in? As part of our exploration, we have been interested in the issues faced by young people who are artists we wonder whether their art makes life more confusing and whether, in their search for self, it could be helpful to read about other artists. (Aug.Because young people have concerns about their identities, it is important for those of us who work with adolescents to consider how young adult literature addresses its readers’ search for self-knowledge.

An unexpectedly painful showdown ends the novel with Gemma achieving emotional clarity. The heavier side of the story, in which Gemma realizes just how wrong her impressions of Nick and Raven are, comes close to predictability, but thoughtful characterizations of the De Heads (and gleeful views of the Lloyds) save it. Debbie's fiancé proposes on his knee in the spice department of the supermarket (“Will you spice up my life and be my wife?”), the opening salvo in the author's sendup of brides (and grooms) who ought to be blushing. Shanahan goes to town with no-holds-barred caricatures. When she's cast as Miranda in her school's production of The Tempest,Īlong with handsome, popular Nick Lloyd as Prospero, Gemma can hardly contain her excitement, even when troublemaker Raven De Head is cast as Caliban. But now that Gemma's getting older and trying to figure out who she is and what she wants, her propensity for blowing an emotional circuit have increased exponentially-especially in matters of love. Most of the birketts are thrown by Dad and Debbie, Gemma's soon-to-be-married older sister. As 14-year-old Gemma Stone explains, “In our family, when anyone starts riding the big wave of their emotions, we say they're chucking a birkett,” Birkett being the name of her older sister Debbie's last “disastrous” boyfriend.

Australian picture-book author and middle-grade novelist Shanahan's first book for teens is an uproariously funny, surprisingly intense read a savvy blend of sharp wit and weight grounds its otherwise over-the-top humor.

The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It by Lisa Shanahan