Crush

By Carrie Mac.

Published in 2006 by Orca Book Publishers, Victoria.

I've been sort of dreading the Hi/Lo category. I've always been a reader, and I assumed that the books for reluctant readers would be too simple, not very well written, or boring. I was surprised when I started reading Crush, which was actually quite engaging. Hope is the child of hippies, raised in a commune, who is spending the summer in Brooklyn with her older sister. 17 year old Hope has been having sex since she was 15 (virginity doesn't last long in a commune, she says), but is surprised to find herself attracted to a girl, Nat. The novel is dedicated to deciding what to do with those feelings, and what they mean for her sexual identity.

Crush is only 106 pages long, so the story unfolds quickly, with little extraneous detail. From the first page, each moment in the story is designed to build towards the final climax. It was definitely not boring, nor was it overly simplistic, and it was actually fairly well written. It's not great literature, but it is a nice story that deals with queer issues simply and honestly.

7/10.
Ages 12-16.