Friday, August 08, 2008

Seventeenth Summer


Have you ever read Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly (1942)?

I randomly thought of it the other day and put it on hold at the library. I read it several times as a teenager and haven't read it since college but I loved it. If I still love it when I re-read it, I'll buy a copy. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to get a copy with the old paperback cover, which is the one I read--it's green and blue and has a painting of a girl in a meadow on the front. So far all I've found online is this:


and, so much worse, this:



Yikes.

Anyway, one reviewer compared it to Nicholas Sparks, but trust me, it's nowhere near as corny. At least...the 20-year-old me didn't think so and the 20-year-old me didn't like Nicky either. Another fan compared the love story part to I Capture the Castle, which I think is closer. I also think of Joy in the Morning, which, despite being about a different phase of "young love" (the first year of marriage), is similarly subtle, and written during the same time period and also set in the Midwest.

Maybe even a little like Betsy and Joe in its subtlety and setting (though not in its plot).

Seventeenth Summer is generally credited as the first young-adult novel to be published in the United States--which could be a good or a bad label, but I can always dig a dose of quality YA fiction myself.

Really though...it's so sweet. I'm pretty sure that if you are a girl (90% of you are) you will adore Angie Morrow and Jack Duluth and their youthful romance blossoming in a 1940s Midwestern summer...ah, Wisconsin in the summertime, can't you just feel the mosquitoes hovering?

I'll review when I get my library copy.

(Images Flickr and Amazon)
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5 comments:

  1. grannybabs8/08/2008 1:43 PM

    I wonder if I can find that on our shelves and take it on the plane with me.

    I haven't read it since high school - a very long time ago.

    Thanks for the reminder.

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  2. grannybabs8/08/2008 1:56 PM

    So I found it - and it's missing the last 2 pages - it goes from 288 to 291!!

    So xerox those pages for me when you get it!!

    (The cover is in bad shape too - but it's the one you described.)

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  3. Eliza8/08/2008 2:32 PM

    I remember that--that the last two pages are missing. They were missing by the time I re-read it one summer in college. I think I checked it out from the library after that to find what I had missed.

    Let me know if you like it as an adult.

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  4. Ashley8/08/2008 2:41 PM

    Never read Seventeenth Summer but will have to take a look because of your recommendation. (I'm wondering what I would think of Betty Smith's book after these years, if I re-read it...)

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  5. bonny with a Y8/10/2008 1:06 AM

    i remember 17th summer - but i don't remember how i felt about it.

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