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Puberty Blues (Puberty Blues, #1)

Kathy Lette,

Gabrielle Carey

Finish date: January 1, 2011

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Jul 04, 2012 Zoë rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-favourites, favorites

3.5 STARS

Pretty Blues I have to say I mostly love is for not holding back at all, it's content was not sugar coated which I think is one of it's most strongest points.

It doesn't beat around the bush or just hint that something happened, it just is thrown in your face very much like having a bucket of cold water thrown on your face. First you have your sharp intake of breath and eyes widening in shock then after awhile your mind is clear and very aware with nothing that is hazy and uncertain.

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Feb 07, 2015 Melinda rated it liked it

Shelves: re-read

I just re-read this book after many many years and to be totally honest it horrified me. I certainly don't remember feeling like that back when I was a teenager but perhaps I was more caught up with being immortal then?

This book is a very very quick read. 110 pages I think. It's a cult classic. It's shocking. It's real. Its colloquial. It's written with all the twang and sophistication of a 13 year old Australian girl.

I think it's horrifying because they are 13 year old girls who spend all thei I just re-read this book after many many years and to be totally honest it horrified me. I certainly don't remember feeling like that back when I was a teenager but perhaps I was more caught up with being immortal then?

This book is a very very quick read. 110 pages I think. It's a cult classic. It's shocking. It's real. Its colloquial. It's written with all the twang and sophistication of a 13 year old Australian girl.

I think it's horrifying because they are 13 year old girls who spend all their time chasing surfer boys, trying to have sex, being groped...and generally disrespected. Their parents seem to have no clue what they are doing and it all just seems really sad. The boys really treat the girls like crap (emotionally, sexually and physically) and that was just how it was. Thank goodness some things have changed.

I grew up in the 70's, not in Cronulla but in a smaller seaside town. I was still in primary school in 1980 so I guess things were not quite the same era for me as they were for our authors. But still, My parents never let me have a boyfriend at that age, go around in cars with boys, they knew all my friends and their parents....let's face it they were strict. And I can remember thinking it was incredibly unfair to have all these rules...but now looking back as a parent myself, older and more world wary - I thank god my parents were strict. I can't imagine my life I'd gotten pregnant or drug addicted so young.

I guess this book wasn't quite a nostalgic walk in the park for me. It stirred up fairly intense feelings of rage and sadness for those young girls....and the many
Others like them. I'd like to think we've fixed all this sort of stuff in society but I don't think we are there yet. We've come along way and I'd like to think my friends daughters, would know more, be more confident, more resilient...better equipped for life - that they'd never let themselves be treated like the girls in this book...but I know that's a bit of a dream still. But I have hopes that one day in the future no girls will be treated this shabbily. They just won't put up with it and the boys just won't think that's the right behavior either...
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