Dear Lovey Hart, I am desperate. I love a man old enough to be my father. I worship him from afar. Do you think there is any hope for a relationship between us? G.C.
Dear G.C., Not unless he wants to adopt you.
Chip is cute. He is also the editor of the high school newspaper. So freshman reporter Carrie Wasserman lets him talk her into becoming the secret advice columnist Lovely Hart.
At first she has all the answers. Lovey Hart becomes a local celebrity. But then Carrie's advice starts backfiring.
Carrie needs help. Fast. Before someone finds out who Lovey Hart really is.
Ellen Conford was an author for children and young adults. Among her writings are the Annabel the Actress and Jenny Archer series. Her books have won the Best Book of the Year Citation, Best Book of the International Interest Citation, Best Book of the Year for Children, Parents' Choice Award, and more.
I actually read the sequel first (WE INTERRUPT THIS SEMESTER FOR AN IMPORTANT BULLETIN) and found and read this many years later, some years ago. Both are very funny--enjoy!
"Dear Lovey Hart, I am desperate. I love a man old enough to be my father. I worship him from afar. Do you think there is any hope for a relationship between us? G.C.
Dear G.C., Not unless he wants to adopt you."
Ellen Conford-"Dear Lovey Heart, I am desperate".
Haha..YES! I see some of my GR friends have read this delightful, funny, quirky little book. It is so much fun! I will admit I think a job like being Lovey Hart would be so much fun! I sure would not answer the letters the way Carey does though!
Anyway, the book is hysterical and cute and I loved Carey and Chip..highly recommended for some really fun moments!
so many editions of this fine piece of literature in goodreads, and yet i can't find the cover of my own copy- in which chip looks like a total dreamboat. (UPDATE: I FOUND IT.) this is one that i checked out over and over from the public library as soon as i graduated to the "YA browsing" room. i found it hopelessly romantic. upon re-reading as an adult it is surprisingly subtle- the romantic leads don't even kiss- but reading it was still a dreamy trip down memory lane. now to get my hands on a copy of the sequel, which i recall loving even more. (brandy alexanders!!)
This is one of my absolute favorites! I love Carrie and her family, as well as all her friends. And I love Chip! Not sure if I love Brandy Alexanders but that might be in the sequel... This book is laugh out loud funny but certainly addresses all the genuine worries a teenager has.
***
I must really love this book - just realized I own four copies! That is a record, even for me.
My true love belongs with We Interrupt This Semester... but this is still lots of fun. With every re-read, though, Chip seems like more and more of a pill.
Such a great book. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Very funny and totally real life.
This is the story of Carrie Wasserman, who is moonlighting as Lovey Hart, the very popular advice columnist on the school paper. For the most part she feels like she's doing something good and giving really good advice. That is until some of the letters become more serious and more than a 9th grader should be handling. Carrie is also dealing with the fact that she has to keep her identity as Lovey Hart a secret, she is falling for the editor of the newspaper and she is missing out on some of the obvious things around her, like the fact that her best friend Marty has a crush on her.
One of the really great things about the book are the letters and responses to the Lovey Hart column. I have to give major kudos to the writer for the brilliance that is those letters and response. Many of them had me guffawing out loud.
This book has some excellent lines. These are 2 of my favorites:
"By the time Marty emerged from the locker room half an hour later, I was the biggest bundle of resentment in the world. 105 pounds of sheer irritation, wearing a strained smile trying unsuccessfully to mask my true feelings with phony heartiness."
"Myra shot me a look of pure scorn as I did so, and I tried to comfort myself with the thought that she would understand and sympathize if I could only explain the situation to her, but there was nothing i could do at the moment to convince her that I hadn't dealt a deathblow to the Equal Rights Movement."
None of these characters or the dialog seemed especially believable to me, and I somehow missed the build-up to Carrie’s angst over her column. It seemed like there was a beginning and an end, but no middle!
I loved this book in seventh and eighth grades...Carrie's troubles were so bizarre, her sense of humor was fantastic! It gave me hope for my high school years and helped me retain my sense of humor when I was on my high school paper!
Ok, so far in my rediscovering of Ellen Conford books that I read as a young adult and am now re-reading as an older, wiser, middle-aged woman include: "And This is Laura," "Me and the Terrible Two," "A Royal Pain," and now this one, "Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate."
Squeezing my brain for whatever impressions I felt the first time I read this as a kid, my only recollection is...disappointment. And a little disgust at everyone's reaction when the BIG SECRET is revealed. *Spoilers below*
Today, over 30 years later, not only have these feelings remained unchanged, there are two or three places in this story that 50, yes you read that right, exactly FIFTY YEARS LATER (because this gem was published in 1975!!! and today is November 2025) only serve to validate my original first impressions. "Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate" has not aged well and compared to the previous three books by Ellen Conford that I listed above, this one rates below all the others. This is due to poor quality writing, plotting and characterization.
To begin with, the story reminded me very much of a "Sweet Valley High" plot. Carrie Wasserman is a lowly Freshman at Lincoln High. She harbors a very secret, very private, crush on Junior upper-classman, Chip. This is all told through Carrie's 1st person POV by the way. Carrie is on the school newspaper staff, "The Lincoln Log" (how original) and Chip is the editor-in-chief. As our story begins, it is the very beginning of the school year, one of the first staff meetings has adjourned, and Chip has asked Carrie to stick around, so they can talk in private.
Much to Carrie's dismay, Chip is not asking her out on a date. He wants to create a new advice column "Ask Lovey Hart," with Carrie as the super secret bestower of wisdom. Nobody else in the entire school, not their teacher advisor or the school guidance counselor who just happens to be Carrie's own, dear father, will know Lovey's true identity. Chip thinks it will be great for the paper. Carrie is very apprehensive and does not want to do it.
But, of course since it means spending more time with her crush, she agrees, then leaves to meet her "sort-of" boyfriend, Marty, who always gives her a ride home after school and to any social event or football game (he's the star quarterback) they hang out together, but, Carrie tells us, strictly as friends. He's two years older and in the same grade as Chip but they've had this brother-sister, easy going relationship since they were little kids, growing up in the same neighborhood. As the story progresses, the reader gets frustrated that Marty doesn't just come out and tell Carrie, straight out, that he'd like to take their relationship to the next level. Instead, Marty chooses to act like a classic "player" by asking all the other girls in their social circle out to make Carrie jealous. Carrie doesn't realize this until almost the very end of the book and I've never liked books where the reader is always one step ahead of the characters who aren't acting like normal people.
Carrie has two best friends, Claudia and Terry. As students enthusiastically send in their letters to Lovey Hart and Carrie does her best to answer them, she also drives the reader a little crazy with her pointless schizophrenia. She fears any moment someone (Claudia, Terry or Marty) is going to come swooping down on her, pointing the finger of accusation, revealing to the world she is Lovey Hart (then throwing her fully clothed into the school swimming pool!)
Carrie also has to endure the agony of Chip not picking up on any of her signals that she likes him. When Claudia makes a few plays and passes at Chip who responds by offering to drive Claudia home after a school activity, Carrie seethes inside. Meanwhile, Terry is dangerously manic depressive because she has a very unhealthy crush on one of her handsome male teachers (he doesn't teach English, nor does he look like Robert Redford!) Terry's depression over her unrequited love gets so bad, she shuts herself up in her room for almost three days until Carrie and Claudia finally come over and talk her down. Well, actually Claudia does all of the talking, Carrie might as well be a fly on the wall. She's so self absorbed, it is hard to root for our main character in this book and the fact that she has TWO guys and even another casual male acquaintance in her friend circle all vying for her attention while she only has eyes for Chip who may or may not return her affections because he's waiting for Carrie to make up her mind over which guy she really likes, makes me want to throw this book at the nearest wall. Real life is not like that. This author can do better than this!
Her friends talk and pick apart all of Lovey Hart's advice in the latest edition of the paper while Carrie wants to die. Her little sister, Jen, is the one who discovers Carrie's BIG SECRET but she was hoping to blackmail Carrie with this information but since they are sisters, she'll keep the secret for a couple more chapters. It's not until the very end of the book, when the truth finally comes out and the whole school discovers Lovey Hart is actually Carrie that everyone at school, all her friends, Marty, people she hardly knows are all furious at her which makes no sense. It was all Chip's idea! Even Carrie's dad (and mom) are mad at her for her "lies" and "keeping the truth" from them.
Yet, Carrie really should have insisted to Chip that a trusted adult be included in their little clandestine column. Some of these letters are scary! Yet, Carrie doesn't take them to her father, show them to Chip, or another trusted adult, to heck with the keeping this a big secret: "Dear Lovey Hart, my mother is an alcoholic and my family is falling apart..." "Dear Lovey Hart, I'm battling a drug addiction..." "Dear Lovey, Help! I'm in love with a man old enough to be my father..." (give you one guess who wrote that one!) and this one should be pretty obvious too, "Dear Lovey, girls treat me like a brother and constantly keep me in the "friend zone" how do I get them to take me seriously as a potential boyfriend (so I can date rape them)?..."
All this book needs to make it modern-day is one that might go: "Dear Lovey, I'm battling same-sex attraction, how do I come out to my parents and friends at school?" but issues like that, now a "must have or risk not getting published" in today's YA fiction, just didn't exist in 1975 teen-culture. Carrie is only 14 or 15 years old, for crying out loud, she's much too young to be dealing with ANY of these kinds of problems!
So, do Carrie and Chip end up together? Yet another cliché fail by the author as Carrie and Chip have the old beaten to death last page conversation: "Wait, you DO like me?" "Oh! I didn't realize YOU liked ME!" And with the passing of a few days, everyone at Lincoln High now thinks Lovey Hart/Carrie wasn't such a bad advice giver after all. Her dad is no longer mad at her, Marty and Terry are now "In a relationship" Claudia also found a single guy to attach herself to. And everyone lived happily ever after. THE END And no, I will not be reading the sequel to this ridiculous YA paperback novel, "We Interrupt This Semester for an Important Bulletin."
I learned about this vintage YA novel because a Goodreads friend added this to her to-read list. (If you're reading this, hi, Kathryn!) The title and premise appealed to me immediately, and I got this from ThriftBooks. On the night that I started it, I was planning to just read a chapter or two and then go to bed, but I ended up reading the whole thing. The first-person narrator is hilarious, self-aware, and clever, and the advice column plot was realistic, showing how a teenager running an anonymous column could both help people and find herself totally over her head.
This book will appeal to people looking for humorous vintage reads, and because it focuses on unchanging elements of human nature, it doesn't feel especially dated. In terms of content notes, there isn't anything in this book that would be considered offensive now. Most notably to me, although there are some realistic references to teen girls feeling unhappy with their weight, this only comes up a few times and isn't a running joke. Some characters use mild profanities. There are some extremely mild sexual references, to the point where they wouldn't even qualify as such in today's world.
One thing I appreciated is how the author handled the subplot about one of Carrie's friends feeling like she's in love with a young teacher. The book makes it very clear that dating a teacher is never a good possibility, that you have to let feelings like this pass, and that when you're under someone's authority and not their peer, a romantic relationship is not an acceptable thing to pursue. I appreciate how the book acknowledges the reality of how a teenage girl might feel about a teacher while still outlining clear boundaries, and without telling a horror story to make the point.
The book "Dear Lovey Hart, I Am Desperate" is quite an amazing book. Carrie Wasserman is just a girl in high school who has a secret, she is the new secret therapist in the schools paper. I really enjoyed learning how when you talk, people can take it literally and in the wrong way. It really puts into perspective what it's like to be living through high school wearing a mask. Personally, I would recommend this book to anyone due to it being so well written and well worded.
Enjoyable, if run-of-the-mill, story of 1970s high schoolers written for the preteen crowd. Best part was actually Carrie's inner struggle with her best friends. In today's current climate, Terry's storyline not only seems dated, but a bit creepy.
Another vintage YA Ellen Conford book— about a sophomore who runs a secret advice column in the school newspaper. Very amusing! This one has a sequel, which I will be reading, and there was an ABC afterschool special, which I will be watching.
I am loving Conford's down-to-earth teen romance novels that capture both the drama and humor of being young. The book may feel a bit dated, but the feelings are not.
As a teen and young adult, I loved Ellen's books. As a writer and a high school student who was on the school paper, I loved this book and it's sequel even more. A few summers ago, the movie, The Duff, sparked a memory of reading a series about a girl on the school paper. (Bianca, the lead character in the movie, was also a writer for their online paper.) After the film, I did an internet search to dig up this book, or at least its predecessor. I forget which order I read them, but I went to the library and spent the summer re-reading some teen favorites. It's an activity I have done each summer since.
This book is funny, and I can relate to Carrie who has unrequited crushes. Her answers to the advice column are witty and to the point. It's not her fault they also get her into trouble.
FINALLY! OK, so I have had this recurring memory for like the past DECADE at least about a book I liked as a kid but couldn't remember what it was called or the author. All I could remember was that it was a girl on a newspaper staff who writes a love advice column and had a crush on the editor (I think he was, anyway) who was named Chip. And she also had a super lame friend who got all depressed when her boyfriend broke up with her and wouldn't talk to anyone, but then when she had a boyfriend again she ignored everyone else and made out with him nonstop. I also remember her being jealous when a new girl comes around, and they all go to a party at the new girl's house and the main character gets drunk and Chip has to take her home. I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of the author, so I went into an internet black hole trying to google every combination of "teen," "book," "newspaper," "advice column," and "chip." FINALLY FOUND IT AND THIS IS IT AND I WANT TO READ IT AGAIN! I can't remember if there are sequels or it's all in this one.
From the author of such works as "Seven Days to a Brand New Me" and "If this is Love, I'll take Spaghetti", comes another smart ass girl trying to find love in the thorny jungles of a suburban high school. This protag makes the mistake of pretty much every YA protag: underestimating the ability for everyone you know and love turning against you due to some secret.
I wonder what Lovey Hart would say of all this. It's like Harriet the Spy if she had a romantic advice column.
Snappy dialogue couldn't save this for me- I found Chip too obnoxious to bear. The premise is cute, the writing is good, and the plot bears one along at a satisfactory clip. I like the parents in this book, and think the fine line that the father must walk is really well-done.
A book about other people's problems...it kind of stresses me out, but it relieves me at the same time. I love this book, and this author, and I would definitely reccomend it.