Jersey Angel [Hardcover]

Beth Ann Bauman (Author)

Book Description

Release date: May 8, 2012

It's the summer before senior year and the alluring Angel is ready to have fun. She's not like her best friend, Inggy, who has a steady boyfriend, good grades, and college plans. Angel isn't sure what she wants to do yet, but she has confidence and experience beyond her years. Still, her summer doesn't start out as planned. Her good friend Joey doesn't want to fool around anymore, he wants to be her boyfriend, while Angel doesn't want to be tied down. As Joey pulls away, and Inggy tours colleges, Angel finds herself  spending more time with Inggy's boyfriend, Cork. With its cast of vivid and memorable characters, this tale from the Jersey shore is sure to make some waves.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Starred Review, Publishers Weekly, March 19, 2012:
“One can almost smell salt and sunscreen in the air in this soulful and insightful coming-of-age story.”

Review, The New York Times Book Review, May 13, 2012:
“Whatever the resolution to Angel’s story, it is clear that with Bauman— whether she’s Judy Blume’s successor or not—the genre is in good hands.”

About the Author

BETH ANN BAUMAN is the author of Beautiful Girls, a short story collection for adults, Rosie and Skate, and is the recipient of a New York Foundaton for the Arts Fellowship. Growing up, she spent summers on the Jersey shore. She lives in New York City.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books (May 8, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385740204
• ISBN-13: 978-0385740203
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.8 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,619,167 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Funny and frank, with a lot of heart May 10, 2012

By Mary Cool

Format:Hardcover

Angel is a unique YA character in that she's far more independent (she lives in her own house on the Jersey Shore), sexually free (she likes sex and isn't afraid to admit it), and unconventional (her career goal is to become a receptionist) than most teen fiction permits -- but that doesn't mean readers of all stripes won't relate. In fact, what I love most about this book is how honestly it deals with what I see as the universal challenge of being a teen -- the question of how to go from being a child to an adult. Throughout the book, Angel becomes more aware of the unintended consequences of sex, the demands of love, and most of all, how certain choices can change your life forever. In particular, there are some really wonderful scenes in connection with a pregnant friend of Angel's (I won't go into detail so as not to spoil the book), in which Angel learns a tenderness and wisdom that are both unexpected and surprisingly mature for a 17-year-old.

In short, I think both teenagers and adults, both, will find this a really worthwhile (and fun) read -- Angel is a great character who really comes alive on the page, and she is supported by an interesting and spunky cast of characters as well as by writing that is both funny and unflinching without ever losing its warmth.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Lovely Read with a Story Authentically Plumbed August 1, 2012

By Steven Dennis

Format:Hardcover

JERSEY ANGEL is a lovely read, and it's story is authentically plumbed by Beth Ann Bauman. The young adult offering follows the adventures of 17-year old Angel Cassonetti, in the summer prior to her senior year - and the realization of all the unknowns that come with that. The book is the interior landscape of a three-dimensional character as she comes to terms with what love is to her, shifting friendship dynamics, and her spunky take on the world she knows and it's small resort-town populace. The warmth that came from looking (for me) back on that part of my life came as a surprise to me, as did the steadily growing care I had for the unexpectedly endearing young heroine. I recommend this book for not only young adults, but suspect that even more mature readers will find meaning in summoning their inner teenagers.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Jersey book for a Jersey girl May 30, 2012

By Kimberly C

Format:Hardcover

Summer before senior year and Angel is lost. But she's one of those characters that doesn't know she's lost. And so as summer goes by into the school year, Angel must start making her own decisions, her own choices. She's not like her best friend and won't be going away for college. She spends more and more time with her best friends' boyfriend Cork because her on again off again boyfriend Joey wants commitment. And Angel is ready for anything but.

I enjoyed Baumna's Rosie and Skate and I think I like this story even more. Bauman captures a small Jersey sea side town perfectly, with the array of characters, both good and bad. Angel is a complicated character. I can't say I liked her, but I definitely felt for her. Bauman does a wonderful job portraying a high school student's life. Yes, there's sex. I'm sorry but of course there is sex. She is 17, gorgeous and has a sexual power to her she doesn't know how to control yet. I'm not saying every beautiful 17 year old has sex, but I liked how Angel was portrayed and how sex was a major part of her finding who she was, who she wanted to be, who she wanted to be with. It didn't feel like a trick, or a way to outrage the reader. It felt real, within the character and her world.

The cast rounds out with Inngy, her best friend who is a little too cookie cutter-ish. And Cork, the bad boy and Inngy's boyfriend and Joey, the ex. I loved them all. Bauman's small town reminds me of the small town I grew up in, everyone knows each other, comfortable with each other, and the kids are all best friends and worst enemies. Given the small group of teenagers, it feels almost incestuous, who is sleeping with who, who is going out with who now. Bravo Bauman. My high school perfectly....

I loved Angel's relationships to her younger siblings, and their conversations. The kids were hilarious, warm and fun. Inngy, Angel's best friend, is wonderfully real, flawed but overall on the right track to what most people take- college and on. Angels has fallen by the sidelines, no SATs, probably not college and not sure what she wants to do with her life. And really, I understand. Even though I went to college, the vast majority of me and my classmates are ready to admit at 17 we really had no idea what we wanted to do with our lives. So even though we chose the college route, I sympathize with Angel's indecisiveness.

The ending came up on me quickly, and I had a sad feeling that I wasn't done yet. That these characters weren't finished and I wanted to see how it all turned out. But that's the thing isn't it- I feel like I know them, but I don't get to follow them.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Jersey Angel Contains Multitudes August 2, 2012

By Victoria Vinton

Format:Hardcover

I'm not sure when I last read a book that so totally captured the feeling of being 17, with all of its attendant doubts and desires, confidence and confusion. Beth Ann Bauman's character Angel Cassonetti embodies all this and more as she stumbles through the summer in her Jersey Shore hometown then heads into her final year of high school, making all sorts of questionable decisions along the way. She sleeps with her best friend's boyfriend, walks out of her SATs, and attempts to shield a pregnant friend from the pain of seeing her stillborn child in a way that will haunt them both. And yet I found myself rooting for her, perhaps because Bauman recounts Angel's story without a drop of sermonizing, using Angel's escapades not to make a simplistic moral point about the consequences of casual sex or the effects of absentee parenting, but to show us how very complicated the process of growing up is. In fact, every character in this book is complicated, and everyone is still growing. There is no one who doesn't make a bad decision and no one who isn't also capable of kindness. Each one contradicts him or herself and each contains multitudes, just as Walt Whitman once wrote of himself. And the fact that Bauman conveys all this in less than 200 pages seems nothing short of a miracle.