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42nd out of 380 books
—
1,085 voters
Hard Love
Since his parents' divorce, John's mother hasn't touched him, her new fiancé wants them to move away, and his father would rather be anywhere than at Friday night dinner with his son. It's no wonder John writes articles like "Interview with the Stepfather" and "Memoirs from Hell." The only release he finds is in homemade zines like the amazing Escape Velocity by Marisol, a
...morePaperback, 256 pages
Published
April 1st 2001
by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
(first published February 27th 2001)
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Nov 02, 2010
karen
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
and-so-this-is-grad-school,
why-yes-i-ya
so - more damaged kids attracting each other like magnets, filling in the places left by distant, absent, or overinvolved adults. a strange choice for LGBTQPR3Z week. sure, it is about a friendless boy whose home life is emotionally barren and a firecracker of a lesbian, but it isn't really about sexuality - that part is used more as window dressing than spotlit, and only serves as an obstacle to keep the characters from kissing. she's cool, he's not, and yet they form a relationship based on zi...more
Do you remember your first love/crush? Do you remember wanting to tell him/her but squirm at the thought of doing so? Do you remember thinking it was hopeless and futile?
Then this is the book for you. Meet John Galardi, a loner and a teenager with divorced parents, trying to express himself through his zine, Bananafish. His inspiration, Marisol Guzman, creator of the zine Escape Velocity and a self proclaimed "rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin."
The two would m...more
Then this is the book for you. Meet John Galardi, a loner and a teenager with divorced parents, trying to express himself through his zine, Bananafish. His inspiration, Marisol Guzman, creator of the zine Escape Velocity and a self proclaimed "rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin."
The two would m...more
6 likes · like · see review
I love Wittlinger's books for their realistic endings; no happy ever after for her, but real teenage problems and real teenage angst. She also writes reasonably well about questioning your sexuality, though I'm curious if I'll still feel that way after I read her newest, Parrotfish.
Regardless -- this is a story about John, who falls in love with his lesbian best friend Marisol, and how they manage to navigate their own problems and the problems between them and come out feeling if not whole at...more
Regardless -- this is a story about John, who falls in love with his lesbian best friend Marisol, and how they manage to navigate their own problems and the problems between them and come out feeling if not whole at...more
Guy becomes friends with girl through a shared love of making zines, guy falls in love with said girl who is unfortunately a lesbian. Hard love, indeed.
John comes from a broken family and he's pretty much a loner ("a witty misanthrope", according to him). Marisol is an adopted Puerto Rican "rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin looking for love." At the start of their friendship, everything is alright. Marisol is a bit guarded though of her feelings and she doesn'...more
John comes from a broken family and he's pretty much a loner ("a witty misanthrope", according to him). Marisol is an adopted Puerto Rican "rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin looking for love." At the start of their friendship, everything is alright. Marisol is a bit guarded though of her feelings and she doesn'...more
The beginning of the book was ridiculously slow. The plot didn't pick up until about half way through. The characters didn't have a stand out personality. They seemed to be those kids that are hiden and shy.
Gio, the alone teenage boy doesn't really understand the "liking" of the oposite sex, but when he meets Marisol, who in this case is lesbian, he falls in love. Giving the impression that he doesn't really know what he wants. Marisol is a bit confused as well. She knows that her preference i...more
Gio, the alone teenage boy doesn't really understand the "liking" of the oposite sex, but when he meets Marisol, who in this case is lesbian, he falls in love. Giving the impression that he doesn't really know what he wants. Marisol is a bit confused as well. She knows that her preference i...more
Hard Love is a beautiful, heartbreaking, thought-provoking love story between two teenagers. The biggest catch though, is that one of them is gay. John knows Marisol is gay because of the zines (self-produced magazines) she writes. Her zines are full of wit, sarcasm, and brutal honestly. John waits for Marisol at a local comic book shop, hoping to meet his favorite zine writer. What he got was an unexpected friend. From the beginning, they’re friendship is an unexpected one. Marisol tries to te...more
3 likes · like · see review
I love a lot of things about Hard Love - the first being, of course, the plot: Straight guy who's never really been attracted to anyone falls in love with a lesbian who happens to be his best friend. It's a storyline that promises quirks, poignancy, and ultimately heartbreak, and the characters complement it perfectly. John and Marisol, especially, are wonderfully fleshed-out, and their friendship is well-developed, too. Ellen Wittlinger does a good job of immersing you in John's (somewhat cynic...more
1 like · like · see review
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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4 likes · like · see review
Dredging the archives of my old YA blog--from back in the day when I was a YA para-librarian. Awesome!
“Zine” is the name for an independent publication or alternative newsletter, with topics ranging from self-exploration to punk bands to comics to travel to DIY instructions and on and on. Check out http://www.denverzinelibrary.org!
Hard Love is all about a boy who finds a girl’s zine, falls in love, and then has his heart broken. Essentially. But it’s also about the secret world of zines, writing...more
“Zine” is the name for an independent publication or alternative newsletter, with topics ranging from self-exploration to punk bands to comics to travel to DIY instructions and on and on. Check out http://www.denverzinelibrary.org!
Hard Love is all about a boy who finds a girl’s zine, falls in love, and then has his heart broken. Essentially. But it’s also about the secret world of zines, writing...more
This is the best book that I've read in a long while. I loved it. It's about a high school boy named John-Gio who reads a few zines and starts one himself. Through this he meets this girl named Marisol. Their friendship changes his life. It's like, when you've been shut down for so long and someone comes along and makes you feel for the first time. I'm also a sucker for people who express themselves in writing. I feel you get to know a lot about yourself and as a reader, possibly, you get to see...more
Hard Love
Ellen Wittlinger
Walking passed that person- that girl or guy you just can’t stop thinking of-gives you a bag of butterflies fluttering around in your stomach. You find your mind wondering off. How wonderful life wou- then you come back to earth realizing that no matter what he/she will never love you back. This is the slice of a bigger heart in the book Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger.
In the book Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger, a boy named John “Giovanni” meets a girl named Marisol sim...more
Ellen Wittlinger
Walking passed that person- that girl or guy you just can’t stop thinking of-gives you a bag of butterflies fluttering around in your stomach. You find your mind wondering off. How wonderful life wou- then you come back to earth realizing that no matter what he/she will never love you back. This is the slice of a bigger heart in the book Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger.
In the book Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger, a boy named John “Giovanni” meets a girl named Marisol sim...more
For the first 3/4 of this book, I didn't like it at all. Something (homework avoidance?) kept me plodding along until the ending, which I liked a lot better than the rest.
John Galardi, high school junior and zine writer, comes from a broken Boston-area home. During the week he lives with his depressed mother, who refuses to touch him, and on weekends he visits his cold selfish father and distributes copies of his zine at the nearby Tower Records. (yeah, the concept of a print zine is kind of da...more
John Galardi, high school junior and zine writer, comes from a broken Boston-area home. During the week he lives with his depressed mother, who refuses to touch him, and on weekends he visits his cold selfish father and distributes copies of his zine at the nearby Tower Records. (yeah, the concept of a print zine is kind of da...more
It's been a while since I've read a realistic fiction YA novel and I was not disappointed by Hard Love. Hard Love is told from the perspective of John, a High School Junior who is incapable of expressing his emotions. He hides behind his journal and his "zine", Bananafish. Writing is his escape, his only place to be who he is. The reason for his isolation from the world and his enclosed heart is the divorce of his parents. John's father left his mother and throughout John's childhood his father...more
Mar 23, 2008
Brita
added it
Just one more YA book, and then I'm going back to grown-up reading - I promise! This one was recommended on one of the blogs I read: http://worththetrip.wordpress.com/200... When I saw that the author is from Swampscott, I no longer had any choice but to read it. But the uncanniness was just beginning. The characters are in high school when I was in high school, hanging out at Trident on Newbury Street, and going to Ani concerts at the Orpheum. If the characters were less than 100% fictional, I...more
I read Love and Lies first and didn't finish it--thought it was ok but I wanted to try this and really liked it. Maybe Marisol comes off better from an objective perspective and not as the narrator. There was something indescribable that kept me reading. I didn't put it down--just sat at the table and read with some low tealights burning and my kitten showing off. For a novel, this was a great how-to about zines.
Nov 20, 2007
Melinda
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who enjoys quality contemporary fiction
Recommended to Melinda by:
Erendina
Shelves:
read-in-college
Excellent YA lit. The characters break out of the mold of boring, conformist high school character and succeed in being fascinating, original, believable characters who fully exist outside their high schools' social structures. I really enjoyed the author's mix of John's friendship with Marisol with his relationships with his parents. A mother who ceased to touch him at all after her divorce and a father who considers Friday-night dinners fulfillment of his paternal duties added to the complexit...more
This book grew on me and although I wouldn't say it's a literary masterpiece it makes for a decent YA novel. The premise is kind of interesting -- straight guy meets gay girl and falls in love. I think the voice is really well developed by the writer so the characters are full of life and you start to feel like you actually know them. Johnny and Marisol both write zines so even though Johnny's the narrator, we do get insight into both of the character's thoughts/feelings/ideas/emotions.
Still, th...more
Still, th...more
I read this a long time ago. Probably about eleven years ago. And yet it still sticks with me and remains one of the nearest and dearest books to my heart. I always felt like a bit of an outcast in high school - somewhere in that middle ground/group of feeling a little invisible at times. I had a notebook full of drawings (which I stink at) and musings and photos and little journal entries. I remember a "popular girl" who used to sneer at me across the table like I was a freak of nature while I...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Marisol has a lot to show John about how to write a good zine. And she’s fine with letting him and everyone else know she’s a lesbian--which isn’t a problem until he falls in love with her.
John’s voice feels very authentic, pouring out on the page what is hard for him to speak out loud. The layout of the book is engaging, with drawings and collages in the front pages, some paragraphs skewed at odd angles, handwritten notes and poems on lined paper, and excerpts from cut-and-paste xeroxed zines....more
John’s voice feels very authentic, pouring out on the page what is hard for him to speak out loud. The layout of the book is engaging, with drawings and collages in the front pages, some paragraphs skewed at odd angles, handwritten notes and poems on lined paper, and excerpts from cut-and-paste xeroxed zines....more
John has an unhappy life. His father is nonexistent except for dinner once a week, and his mother has had issues with John since her husband walked out on them years ago. John's one friend in high school, Brian, bugs him more than not, and John is looking for something more. He starts writing zines, and discovers that there are other teens like him. He meets another zine writer who he admires. She's beautiful...and a lesbian. This is the story of their relationship and how they learn to cope wit...more
You could say Hard Love is the story of a boy's first love, but anyone who is going or has gone through their teen years knows first love is never that simple. In Ellen Wittlinger's Lambda Literary award winning short novel, we hear from John 'Gio' Galardi Jr. as he experiences hard love, first in his strained relationship with his divorced parents and then with Marisol, a fellow 'zine writer.
This novel explores themes relevant to young adults, including self-discovery, testing boundaries, sexu...more
This novel explores themes relevant to young adults, including self-discovery, testing boundaries, sexu...more
Hard Love is a story about a teenager named John, who's live since his parent's divorce years earlier is anything but easy. His mother avoids all physical contact and has not touched him years, and his father would rather be anywhere where John isn't. John is still trying to figure out his life while his best friend is discovering young love and in an effort to make sense of growing up, John writes a 'zine ( a homemade magazine) and becomes a big fan of one 'zine called, "Escape Velocity" who is...more
I loved so many things about this book.
1. I love that this is like historical fiction now, but a complete letter to my high school heart. Zines in print, life before cell phones, Tower fucking Records!
2. The subdued & not-so-subdued rage of the narrator. The way other people's emotions funnel into you & are compressed into anger. The powerlessness of that life.
3. The denial of sexuality, the lies we tell ourselves. I remembered so clearly, so sharply that it hurt, the firm belief I he...more
1. I love that this is like historical fiction now, but a complete letter to my high school heart. Zines in print, life before cell phones, Tower fucking Records!
2. The subdued & not-so-subdued rage of the narrator. The way other people's emotions funnel into you & are compressed into anger. The powerlessness of that life.
3. The denial of sexuality, the lies we tell ourselves. I remembered so clearly, so sharply that it hurt, the firm belief I he...more
John is in high school, has one best friend named Brian, and his parents are divorced. John does not have a great relationship with either of his parents and isn't thrilled about his Mom's engagement to her boyfriend Al. He is kind of an outsider in school and he is not really interested in getting a girlfriend. He writes his own zine called “Bananafish” formed a friendship with a Puerto Rican Yankee lesbian named Marisol who writes a zine called “Escape Velocity”. Marisol is quite and intriguin...more
She was counting out dollar bills now, so I reached in my pocket for a few of my own. "Do you know what 'coming out' really means?" she asked, looking me square in the face again. "it means you stop lying. You tell the truth even if it's painful, especially if it's painful. To everybody, your parents included."
"I'm not gay," I told her, though I really had no strong evidence for saying so. "At least I don't think I am."
"There are other closets."
John Galardi is pretty miserable. His parents sp...more
"I'm not gay," I told her, though I really had no strong evidence for saying so. "At least I don't think I am."
"There are other closets."
John Galardi is pretty miserable. His parents sp...more
This was my favorite book this week because I really fell in love with the characters. I think I also liked it because the characters are writers also. I love to write and felt a sense of connection to these characters. Marisol is a lesbian and is very open about being one. Gio falls for her even though she is one. I think Gio falls for Marisol because she becomes a close friend and really cares about him and he hasn't had anyone in his life like that for a while. I saw differences of how gays a...more
Hard Love is about a 16 year old boy named John who writes and reads zines (homemade magazines). He meets Marisol, a lesbian zine writer, and the two become close friends. Even though both people have built up walls to protect themselves from emotional pain, they qauickly become close friends and they trust each other. They discover more about themselves and each other on their journey as friends.
I thought Ellen Wittlinger's Hard Love was a fantastic book. The way she discussed the emotions o...more
I thought Ellen Wittlinger's Hard Love was a fantastic book. The way she discussed the emotions o...more
John Galardi (Giovanni, or Gio for short) is a little less than normal boy who has never really had friends. He’s never really liked girls, even going as far to think that he may be gay. Brian, his only “friend” is obsessed with becoming popular and making something out of himself, but John… isnt. That is until he meets the author of his favorite zine Escape Velocity, Marisol, a self proclaimed “rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and -talented writer virgin looking for love”. John starts...more
“Hard Love” is about John Galardi Jr., the emotionless protagonist. John has a dysfunctional family – his mother never touches him and his father barely talks to or hangs out with him. Because of his dysfunctional family, John has been a loner for a few years. Then, John meets Marisol, a lesbian, and his life begins to change.
I think that John’s family should have communicated more in the past. If John and his family had better communication, they would understand one another much better. Also,...more
I think that John’s family should have communicated more in the past. If John and his family had better communication, they would understand one another much better. Also,...more
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Ellen Wittlinger is the critically acclaimed author of the teen novels Heart on My Sleeve, The Long Night of Leo and Bree, Razzle, What's in a Name, and Hard Love (an American Library Association Michael L. Printz Honor Book, a Lambda Literary Award winner, and a Booklist Editors' Choice). She has a bachelor's degree from Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois, and an M.F.A. from the University...more
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“I watched her walk away, first thinking: good riddance – who needs this abuse? And then after a minute thinking: she never really understood me anyway. Which rapidly changed to: I never understood her at all. And before long I was watching her small back disappear and thinking: there goes the only person who ever gave a damn about me.”
—
19 people liked it
“It's a lie, you know, to pretend that nothing is important to you. It's hiding. Believe me, I know because I hid for a long time. But now I won't do it anymore. The truth is bioluminescent. I don't lie, and I don't waste time on people who do.”
—
16 people liked it
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