Books - Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings, Charmed Thirds - Megan McCafferty

CourtneyS416 · 05-06-2006, 08:43 PM

Anyone read this trilogy about Jessica Darling's high school and college years?

I just finished the third book and need someone to discuss them with.

Anyone?

“My parents suck ass. Banning me from the phone and restricting my computer privileges are the most tyrannical parental gestures I can think of. Don’t they realize that Hope’s the only one who keeps me sane? . . . I don’t see how things could get any worse.”

When her best friend, Hope Weaver, moves away from Pineville, New Jersey, hyperobservant sixteen-year-old Jessica Darling is devastated. A fish out of water at school and a stranger at home, Jessica feels more lost than ever now that the only person with whom she could really communicate has gone. How is she supposed to deal with the boy- and shopping-crazy girls at school, her dad’s obsession with her track meets, her mother salivating over big sister Bethany’s lavish wedding, and her nonexistent love life?

A fresh, funny, utterly compelling fiction debut by first-time novelist Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts is an insightful, true-to-life look at Jessica’s predicament as she embarks on another year of teenage torment--from the dark days of Hope’s departure through her months as a type-A personality turned insomniac to her completely mixed-up feelings about Marcus Flutie, the intelligent and mysterious “Dreg” who works his way into her heart. Like a John Hughes for the twenty-first century, Megan McCafferty taps into the inherent humor and drama of the teen experience. This poignant, hilarious novel is sure to appeal to readers who are still going through it, as well as those who are grateful that they don’t have to go back and grow up all over again.

"Every day, I wait for that doomsday shoe to drop on my head and crush my spirit," laments New Jersey high schooler Jessica Darling. This hilarious, candid sequel to Sloppy Firsts opens the summer before Jessica's senior year of high school, when the precocious misfit is at a New Jersey academic enrichment camp whose competitive enrollment is belied by its acronym-SPECIAL. There, she meets Prof. Samuel MacDougall, a handsome writing teacher with "three novels, two works of nonfiction and one hot piece of ass to his name," who challenges Jessica to imagine the world outside of her native suburbia. She also runs into her former "crush-to-end-all-crushes" Paul Parlipiano (he's gay, of course), who introduces her to Columbia University-which she decides she must attend. Come September, Jessica works on her college applications, dearly misses her best friend, Hope, who has moved to Tennessee, and spends much of her time trying not to think about bad boy Marcus Flutie, who broke her heart last winter when he confessed that he only asked her out as an experiment. As her senior year progresses, Jessica starts dating Len Levy, her rival for class valedictorian, and becomes the subject of the school's new anonymous gossip rag. The material is typical teen fare, but Jessica is a captivating, intelligent, acidly funny-but always believably adolescent-narrator who is unsparing in her sketches of Pineville High "society" yet touchingly alive to her own vulnerabilities. Though the happy ending seems targeted to a YA crowd, adults will also enjoy Jessica's winning observations.

This funny, sympathetic installment in Jessica Darling's story (Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings) picks up the summer after her freshman year at Columbia University. The precocious Jersey girl, now a savvy city slicker, has picked a major (psychology), landed an internship at a hip Brooklyn magazine and managed to stay together with her high school boyfriend, reformed bad boy Marcus Flutie, for the entire school year. McCafferty follows Jessica through three years of college, chronicling her academic and extracurricular endeavors, her romantic and financial woes, all in Jessica's frank, exuberant voice. While she kisses a Republican, lusts after hot Spanish grad student Bastian and ventures a clumsy hookup with dormmate Kieran, Jessica expends a lot of energy agonizing over her long-distance relationship with Marcus, now a student at an unaccredited Buddhist university in California. The snappy writing, au courant wordplay (e.g., Jessica affectionately dubs indie-rock boys "bright-eyed, death-cab cuties") and easy-to-relate-to plot turns will keep eager teens—and teens-at-heart—turning the pages, but designating a high school romance as the novel's primary engine leaves the story stagnant.

Manda105 · 05-11-2006, 10:49 PM

I absolutely love these books. I read Charmed Thirds in a day because I had been waiting for so long for it to come out.

I love that Jessica grows up with each book. I can relate to her so much because at each stage of the books, I've been at or near the stage in my life that she is. I could totally relate to a lot of the stuff she said about college because I've experienced it too.

And the postcards Marcus sent? Perfect.

***isy*** · 05-12-2006, 08:30 PM

i bought Sloppy Firsts a week ago, so am still reading it. i would have finished it but been so busy.....

Zutfan05 · 05-14-2006, 03:36 PM

i read charmed thirds in a day, also. My friend got me hooked on the books a year ago and i've read them multiple times. I loved all three, though i think the first two were better than the first. doesn't matter thoug, it was still a great book!

i loved Jessica, Bethany (her sister), and Marcus Flutie