If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever? (Marshall Cavendish Classics) [Hardcover]

M. E. Kerr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2009

Alan Bennett is all set for his senior year to be the best year ever. He’s the school’s star jock, star writer, star everything . But that’s before Duncan Stein enters the scene. Stein, the new boy at Cayuta High, is nicknamed "Doomed" by his classmates, and Alan thinks he’s a total joke. Then Stein invents a newspaper called REMOTE , with personal ads everyone wants to imitate. Suddenly, Stein is most WANTED himself, even by Alan’s own girlfriend! Could Alan possibly lose his girl to such a freak?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Margaret A. Edwards Award-winning author M. E. Kerr lives in East Hampton, New York.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Hardcover: 178 pages
• Publisher: Marshall Cavendish Childrens Books (March 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761455450
• ISBN-13: 978-0761455455
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,075,782 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my teenage favorites!, July 14, 2000

By 

yanipoo - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I love you, am I trapped forever? (Paperback)

(Spoiler Alert)

I loved this book as a teenager. I am so sad it is out of print. The reason this book was so special to because it showed me how painful the concept of popularity in school was, and the person who held it could also lose it quickly. It was a good companion for the geeky reader I was. The hero or the anti-hero of the book was a tall socially inept Jewish boy, who through his writing, creativity and his newspaper seem to change the way the school and people within perceived themselves. What a concept! Through writing you can win.

But the in retrospect, the changes in Doom when he became popular also is a moral in power and corruption, yet at the same time, a call for the goodness in high school activities too. The boy who never played basketball and was above all the high school social things, falls in love, becomes a high school boy too. His intellectual demeanor slowly fades as he is more accepted by his classmates. The book questions, what is real within us versus the front we want to be perceived by.

Of all of ME Kerr's books I read, I think this one was the best in bring out the concept of how impermanent life in high school was, and no matter how much you liked it or not, it would be over and your life will start a new.

Anyway, all I can say is, this is another of ME Kerr's great books about life, and the complexities of it in a high school context, yet never allowing it to go too deep, dark and still celebrates youthfulness. Buy it when it comes around again.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Teens Take On Life & Love, December 2, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever (Paperback)

Everything for 16-year-old Alan Bennett has been perfect so far. He's very popular, good-looking, and is now going steady with the beautiful senior, Leah Pennington. But all that changes when Duncan "Doomed" Stein, a gangly, homely loner, moves to Cayuta, New York. At first, he doesn't seem a threat to anyone, least of all Alan. But that's before he publishes his own newspaper, "Remote", and attracts all the "lonely hearts" at the high school with the anonymous dating ads. Soon everyone at Cayuta High is no longer interested in going steady with each other, but trying to find a more meaningful alternative to love. Alan and Leah, being the ideal couple, seem immune to this fad, until Alan reads the the love letter Doomed has given Leah. Then nothing makes sense to Alan anymore. Besides losing his girlfriend to the biggest dork in school, he has to struggle with the sudden reappearance of his deadbeat father, the crush he has on Doomed's beautiful mother, and the secret affair she has with Alan's football coach.

Although this book is geared more towards teens, it might be a little too deep for some younger readers. At least, when I was that age, I wasn't puzzling over the mysteries of love. But if you like teen stories that are more intellectual than most, then you might give this one a try.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If i love you am i trapped forever? - VR, June 5, 2001

By 

"veronicar" (Los angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: If I Love You, Am I Trapped Forever? (Hardcover)

This book deals with relationships and makes me feel secure in the fact that it'll be okay when you lose something or someone you thought you'd have forever. It made me re-think and re-evaluate my own morals.