DENIAL IS a handy psychological device if you are a parent. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is essential to survival. Otherwise there is too much to worry about. My list of things to worry about when it comes to my daughters is quite exhausting already, including as it does: strangers on the bus, not being cruel, doing well at school and understanding the finer points of Bob Dylan.
Reading has never been on the list. I believe that reading is a good thing. Well, maybe not all reading, but almost all. Plus censorship takes a lot of time. I am not against banning things. Actually, I rather enjoy a good edict. Piercings, Twix bars: you name it, I’ve banned it. Parenthood has given me a real taste for dictatorship. But books are different. For a start, to ban them, I would have to read them. My 14-year-old, Vanessa, is a voracious reader. Trying to keep up with her would be a killer.
I am also not really sure I can stand to read those horror novels that she loves. Those books (so thick!) did give a twinge of worry. But then I thought: how bad can they be? It’s probably like fake blood: looks seriously awful but is essentially camp. I did feel a bit more than a twinge when she asked me what novel to read about the First World War and, in an unthinking moment, I suggested Birdsong. Then, as she scurried upstairs with the book, I remembered the sex scenes. In fact, didn’t Sebastian Faulks win a Bad Sex Award at some point? But I had a conversation with myself (silently, obviously) in which I convinced myself that Vanessa would not be interested in those scenes. Clearly her main interest would be in the trenches.
All of this goes towards explaining why, when Vanessa and I were asked to read the latest offerings in the phenomenally successful “teen chick-lit”, I was breezy. “I never worry about what Vanessa reads!” I announced. “Life is too short.”
There were four books. Vanessa read them all in about two days. It took me considerably longer. I have emerged a chastened mum. I now realise that denial is not only a long river in Africa but a luxury that I no longer enjoy. Life will never again be too short to worry about books. I am going to have to stay up later to fit in new worry time.
The books split neatly into two camps: the ridiculous and the dangerously ridiculous. First, the ridiculous. LBD: The Great Escape is the second in what no doubt will turn into a mammoth series. LBD stands for Les Bambinos Dangereuses and the cover line says: “You’re going to love these flirty feisty lasses.”
Hmmm. Maybe not, but you are certainly going to read a lot about them. The plot, such that it is, is about the three “switched-on minxes” going to a rock concert. Yes, that’s it. And it lasts for 275 pages. I have never before read a book where chapters are separated by drawings of butterflies.
Not that there were not highlights. There was, for instance, the loving description of that “juicy lovebite” or the endless agonising over what Fleur (one of the LBD) should do about her “buttmunch” of a boyfriend. I also enjoyed all of the fantastic gushing as in: “Sooooooo” or “Ugggggggh”. Then there was that great moment when Fleur is at the concert and looks down at her wrist. She and a fellow LBD, Claudette, are “gobsmacked ”. Fleur narrates her reaction:
“It’s surreal, no, it’s more than surreal. I feel totally dizzy.
‘Claude,’ I shriek, ‘We’ve . . . we’ve got . . . VIP wristbands!’
‘I . . . I . . . er . . . ooh, I know,’ yells Claude, as the gates slam shut behind us, making us officially part of the beautiful people.”
The Gossip Girl book, called You’re The One That I Want, is even sillier. This series is a junior version of Sex and the City and the book revolves around a bunch of teenagers getting into Yale. There are some classic lines, such as “Hot weather and thongs are a bad combination”. It is littered with enough brand names to be the literary equivalent of motor-racing.
The plot lines are gloriously inane but I think my favourite has to be that of Blair and her virginity. She wants to do it with her pothead boyfriend Nate (getting into Yale because he plays lacrosse) and, as you can see from the following excerpt, is sorely tempted early in the book: “Blair groaned inwardly. If only she could have sex with him right there on the greasy old wooden Central Park bench! But she had to wait until she heard from Yale. It was the deal she’d made with herself.” It would be funny if my 14-year-old weren’t reading it.
It wasn’t until I tackled the last two books, though, that I had a complete sense of humour failure. Love Fifteen is by Ros Asquith. On the cover there is a flower over the “i” in Asquith and a bluebird over the “i” in Fifteen. The blurb line is “Pee on the stick, wait four minutes . . . Aaargh!” There is a cartoon of a girl knitting a tiny vest.
My denial was so gold-plated, though, that I still embarked on this book thinking it would be fine. It is not fine. The book is the diary of a girl named Amaryllis (aka Amy) Baker. There is almost no context and so I cannot tell you much about her. I think she’s middle-class but school is a blur and her parents are stick figures. She is in a band (but then almost all girls in teen chick-lit are). Amy falls in love with Tom but then he has to move to Japan. They decide to “do it ”. But then Amy gets drunk on a cocktail called a Turbo Shaglauncher and cannot remember if she has had sex with another guy. It takes months for her to figure out that she is pregnant.
In the book, this pregnancy is not treated as a negative thing. In fact, the babies (twins, of course) are presented as essentially positive. Their birth reunites her family and also makes Amy realise she loves Tom. But then, Amy loves everyone by now as she gushes to her diary: “I think I didn’t really know what love was, till I had Lisa and Bart. The sheer physical shock of it overwhelms me. It is like a red-hot furnace in my chest every time I look at them, or cuddle them, or feed them — which is all the time.”
To which, if I can borrow a word from chick-lit, pukerama. By now I too was feeling something red-hot, but it was anger. Who was going to pay for these twins? Who is going to take care of them? How is this girl going to survive? What the hell is Ros Asquith (don’t forget that little flower over the “i”) doing?
I did not think things could get worse. And then they did. In Roxy’s Baby a 14-year-old gets pregnant after having sex once (another teen chick-lit theme) and runs away from home. She finds herself in a rather mysterious and sinister home for pregnant girls. It is a quasi-thriller. The baby is treated as an overwhelming positive influence on Roxy and the other girls. In fact, Roxy survives only because of her love for her unborn baby.
The underlying message is unmistakable: babies are good, even if you are 14. I point out to Vanessa that there are essential flaws in this idea. She says, rather patiently and with rolling eyes, that she knows that. But, still, I am furious.
