The Healing Time of Hickeys [Mass Market Paperback]

Karen Rivers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 2004

Haley Andromeda is 16, and in her last year of high school - "The Greatest Year of My Life," or TGYML. Haley likes to think she's just a normal girl, plagued with all the normal doubts of a too-smart-for-her-own-good, slightly hypochondriac, hickey-prone teenager. But part way through the year, disaster strikes: Haley comes down with chickenpox; her best friend Jules won't speak to her; the object of her affections, a boy named J. T., won't even look at her; and worst of all, her harmless hippie Dad is in some mysterious trouble with the law. In desperation, Haley turns to the Ouija board and tries to communicate with the Other Side, but this leads to a further, unexpected complication: Why does the dead boy she channels seem more attractive than the real boy who wants to spend time with her? The Healing Time of Hickeys, written in diary form, takes the reader on a compelling, wryly funny journey to discover the answer to this question, and several more that Haley thinks she keeps hidden from everyone.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–Hypochondriac Haley Andromeda Harmony, 16, is ready to embark on TGYHL (The Greatest Year of Her Life). She is starting her senior year with her best friends Jules and Kiki. Told through Haley's journal entries, the story gives readers a glimpse of a life shaped by parental abandonment; an unemployed, '60s-throwback father who grows marijuana to pay their rent; two friends who aren't always so friendly; and a tendency toward getting hickeys. When the teen meets a "cute-ish stranger" at a party, her life begins to change. He gives her chicken pox and from there everything spirals out of control, leading to one half-hearted toke of a joint, experimentation with a Ouija board, a hospital stay, a police raid, and a meeting with her long-gone mother. Haley is a bright, realistic, and appealing protagonist, whose wry wit and brilliant naïveté help her transcend her situation. The author's excellent turns of phrase, convincing dialogue, and honest picture of teen life make this book a winner. The journal covers September through New Year's Day, leading teens to anticipate another installment. Though many issues are dispatched with too easily (drugs are out of the basement, Dad's on the road to employment, the desperate crush on an unattainable boy is gone), YAs will still want to know the outcome of TGYHL.–Elaine Baran Black, Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. The heroine of this piece, writing in her diary, compares herself to Bridget Jones--and no wonder. Sixteen-year-old Haley's lively recitation distinctly recalls Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones' Diary (1998), as well as Louise Rennison's books (though without the heavy British slang). Haley has a lot to write about. She is a hypochondriac; her father is a hippie who sells marijuana for a living; and the love of her life, J. T., barely knows she's alive. All this becomes droll comic fodder for Haley, who, during the time she writes in her diary (The Greatest Year of My Life aka TGYML) does become seriously ill, temporarily loses her dad to jail, and finds a real boyfriend--consequently learning how long it takes hickeys to heal. The diary format is certainly derivative, but that doesn't mean this isn't funny. Teens who like the format (or who can overlook it) will find recognizable events painted with a patina of the absurd. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 298 pages
• Publisher: Raincoast Books, Polestar (January 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551926008
• ISBN-13: 978-1551926001
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,061,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars No more than 4, May 14, 2006

By 

W. Johnson "the truth shall set you free" (New Orleans, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Healing Time of Hickeys (Mass Market Paperback)

This book is about a 16 yr. old girl starting off her senior year of highschool. Haley is a slight hypochondriac, and that brings a lot of humour to the book because in one passage her father tells her that hypochondria is a sickness and to look it up. Refering to the numerous times she searches on Medline. Such as when she tripped over her cat and thought to possibly have Cat Scratch Disease.

She writes in her diary (aka her laptop), adressing it as JT junior (junior for short/ protection)nearly everyday about her life. She writes about her friends and their problems, about her father and his ability to have money but no real job, how her mother left her and her search to find her, her obession with JT, and the chicken pox which she got from the boy that gave her the infamous hickeys that just don't seem to disappear.

My only disappointment in this book is on the back with the discription. Sure, she contacts a spirit through the Ouija board a few times, but she's not "that" into it. Nothing really happens, in fact, it takes up barely in part in the plot. It seemed to just be stuffed in there to take up a line or twenty throught the entire 2nd half of the book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Read Haley's Diary!, March 8, 2006

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Healing Time of Hickeys (Mass Market Paperback)

Have you ever kept a diary? In the book The Healing Time of Hickeys by Karen Rivers you get a chance to enter Haley's diary. Haley is a 16 year old girl who keeps a diary on her laptop computer. She names her diary Junior JT after her crush JT, but she calls her diary Junior for short. This is one of the funniest books I have ever read! If you like hilarious books or even hilarious movies, I highly recommend you read this book. Haley has never met her mom and liives with her dad who is a hippie. Her mom left her when she was a baby with her dad. Along the way, Haley gets the chicken pox, an awful haircut, and into a dilemma with a Ouija board. Will Haley ever meet her mom? Will Haley ever get her crush to fall in love with her? Will Haley ever find out what the healing time of hickeys is? You'll have to read this book to find out!

4.0 out of 5 stars Pretty halarious., June 15, 2004

By 

Oties "oties101" (Hawaii) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Healing Time of Hickeys (Mass Market Paperback)

Haley Andromeda was a typical teenage girl. Except for her dad being a hippie and growing pot in the basement, her having a hopeless crush on JT, one of the cutest guys in school, and being prone to hickey's from a Cutish Stanger. Ok, so she isn't so normal, but this book is definately halarious. I picked it up on one of my book store trips, and I've read it twice since then! Read it, you won't regret it.