6. The Breakup Bible

The Breakup Bible (Melissa Kantor, coming May 2007)

Yikes--it's been a few weeks since I finished this one and I'm a couple more books behind.

The Breakup Bible has a bright pink cover with a breaking heart on it, so it was embarrassing to read it at the airport bar between planes. That's the downside to reading in public. I guess it doesn't bother some people, but I'm the person who, when reading a romance novel for a class, made a little cover for my mass-market paperback because I couldn't stand to have people on the bus think I actually wanted to read it. Is that librarian guilt?

Where was I? Oh, yes: The Breakup Bible. I was kind of excited when I saw that the first chapter is titled, "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" and thought maybe they'd all be named after songs. It was a little disappointing to see that the protagonist doesn't even know/like Wilco and the rest of the chapters are not musically named. Anyway, the story centers on Jennifer, a high school junior and school newspaper journalist whose boyfriend (and editor) breaks up with her. I was annoyed with the character for being so snively about the whole ordeal and couldn't really sympathize with her. Teenage breakups were never so dramatic for me, but maybe I'm an unfeeling robot. In any case, Jennifer's grandmother gives her a self-help book to help her recover (maybe Grandma thought she was a whiner, too) .

I actually did get sucked into the story. The writing is solid and the voices of all the characters rang true. It seems like everything I picked up from Hyperion has been really good, so big ups to them. Some of Jennifer's references seemed a little old for her, but I've found that to be pretty common in YA lit--probably because the people writing this stuff are closer to my age than their characters'. It's a small problem, but one that bugs me both in books and on television.