Customer Reviews

Do You Remember the First Time?

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was exquisite writing. One of those books you start reading in the bookstore, and then suddenly realizing if you're taking this long to pour through a book it's really more fair to buy it, and then you can't stop reading it until 3 in the morning when you're eyes finally droop and fall apart.

Woman is uncomfortable with the direction of her life, twice. She makes a wish, and suddenly is transported into the past- with a twist. She's 16, but in the present, the early 21st century. That's a new one. And she has to decide if she can, does she want to go back? How it happened is a bit of a deux es machina, never explained. But in this book, that's unimportant. I enjoyed the author's playing both with alternate reality, and real moral issues. Can we change our lives? Should we? What does it mean to be satisfied with life and not bitter, yet still striving to change? I was challenged in reading this work to contemplate my past and accept the good in my present.

Colgan writes real. I have no inkling into the past of this author, but the book feels so true one would think it had to be autobiographical. What amazes me is that the author remembers her youth so well. I certainly have forgotten most of the details she seems to have recalled. As I read it, I was transported into my own past life as a teenager, and simultaneously as an adult of about the age of the protagonist. Having been a student, and now a teacher, I could see life as a student and a teacher at the same time. Some authors vividly portray different characters. It takes real skill to portray two different aspects of the same character at the same time.

And lest one think this is only for women, as a guy, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Although I hesitate to say I have any knowledge of what women feel and how they respond, these characters feel like real girls, and real women.

4 Stars, because the end is a wrapped up a bit too quickly and too neatly. Also, Colgan seems to take the easy way out in reference to sex, which is a bit too vivid and doesn't really help the plot along. There's a definite moral imperative preached on this topic that thankfully is not the primary theme. As such, while I could recommend it to both men and women, I couldn't to boys and girls.

Colgan shows us through memory high-school life in the 80s, and through narrative vivid high-school life in the 90s. She's done her research. The teenage reader would not be disappointed in reading about reality for her in the present day. The adult reader will not be disappointed in sharing with the protagonist complete confusion at all the new teenage terms and ideas (which is rather the point of the book). You'll see yourself again and again in this work. And in the end, you'll be utterly surprised.

I thought this book was quite funny, and it did made me think how things in your past can change your whole future.

However, I felt the ending was a bit rushed, and I also think the book was created for a British public, so unless you lived in Britain through the 80's, you will have no idea when she makes references to Pop Stars, and trends that only took place there.

Still, it is a funny and different book, and it did make me go back to when I was 16!