GRACE BOOK CLUB
Every Monday, Grace recommends a book by a woman writing literary prose.
POP! by Aury Wallington
Aury Wallington (Sex & the City, Veronica Mars) has dished up a teen novel about sex that focuses on that universal teenage preoccupation: everyone-has-done-it-but-me! Sterling Prep high-school senior Marit is set to lose her virginity. She just needs to find the lucky guy to give the goods to. Only no candidate seems exactly right and Marit tends to bail when things get intimate. Marit plays violin badly, dresses with an artistic bent, and is at times bold and other times convincingly self-loathing and insecure. (In other words, a girl, a real live flesh-and-blood girl!) When she decides to take her virginity in her own hands and sleep with her best guy friend, Jamie, who is also a virgin, Marit finds out exactly what “doing it” does and doesn’t change. Pop! is not the usual sensationalistic fare. Bubbly and fun, serious and relatable, Wallington doesn’t hold back when talking about the confusion, the embarrassment, and the thrall that sex holds over teens.