IF THIS IS LOVE, I'LL TAKE SPAGHETTI

by Ellen Conford ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 31, 1983

'And you're sure he was talking about me?'. . . 'Elizabeth, get off that phone!'. . . 'Mother, please. This call is really important. It could affect the entire course of my future.' 'If you're not off that phone in two minutes you won't have a future.'"" Teenmag fluff, served up in nine short stories characterized by breathless dialogue and trite, facile plot twists. Overweight Jamie sets out to lose 20 pounds so a certain boy will like her; when he starts asking her out fat and all, she decides to lose the weight anyway, ""just for myself,"" and he offers to help her stick to the diet. Katie throws herself into a crush on a rock star, then discovers that he's unworthy. Letters from ""Extremely Shy Person"" to an advice column unfold how she arranges, via a geometry tutor, to bring herself and classmate Alvin, who's also shy, together. Barbara rants on about her boyfriend, seen at the movies with another girl, then her end of a phone conversation reveals that the ""date"" was his cousin. An observer tells of her self-occupied friend who takes up and drops boyfriends but is dropped by her latest and longest-lasting for a drabber girl who knows how to listen. Libbie babbles on the phone about a boy she wants to like her, but only after her parents clamp down on her phone use does he get through to ask her out. Also on the phone, Carole and Janie rave about their ""respective hunks"" Dick and Richard, then go out together and see the heel (same hunk, of course) with a third girl. And Bonnie, enchanted by classmate Tamara's mother Cerise who's into ""no nukes"" and tofu and gypsy clothing, comes to realize that Cerise is ""like that clichÉ about New York. . . a great place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there""--while her own coupon-clipping, soap-watching Mom is a better mother. ClichÉ, yes.

Pub Date: March 31, 1983

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Four Winds

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1983

Categories: FICTION