Category: Why Should Your Parents Have All the Fun?

It’s the late 80’s/early 90’s in the pricey Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Michigan, and Emma Harris’s rites of passage include securing the right jeans, (Guess?) jelly shoes (pink) and friends (Stephanie, NOT Katrina) While I hear that at the time of this review the 80’s are hot again (just take a gander at the Rainbow-Brite colored VH1 “I Love the 80’s” docu-series) I’m not quite sure that today’s teens will be into this spot-on rendering of 80’s adolescence. But if you’re into resurrecting leg-warmers, Esther’s (aka Madonna’s) virginity, and Boone’s Farm-induced make-out sessions, you will thoroughly enjoy meeting Sarah McCandless’s Grosse Pointe Girl. There’s also some great graphic illustrations of Emma’s suppressed suburban upbringing by Christine Norrie (And if you’re 30+ and reading this list, then I can safely guarantee you’ll love it!)

Mirabella is just standing around at the fine glove counter at Neiman’s waiting for her life to begin. Ray Porter is a wealthy, world-weary businessman who is clueless about women. How these two meet and navigate their somewhat odd relationship is the basis for funnyman Steve Martin’s first stab at fiction. Full of wicked truth about male/female relationships, Shopgirl is short enough to finish over a latte at Starbucks while you’re waiting for your blind date to show up.

At nineteen, David has decided he needs to have a big, life-altering experience that will change him forever. So, after very little research, he hooks up with Liz, a hottie he hopes to have a carnal knowledge of, and takes off for a three month backpacking trip across India. There, he discovers that India is extremely hot, crowded, and smelly, not the cool green paradise he imagined. He gets sick from the food, fights constantly with Liz (did I mention that she also happens to be his best friend’s girlfriend?) and almost loses his mind on a thirteen hour bus trip. But the real test comes when Liz ditches Dave after falling for a tantric yoga teacher, and he has to make it across the sub-continent alone. Can Dave deal with the “real” India experience? This book was so funny and so dead-on right about the lofty, P.C. attitude that western culture holds toward third world countries that my stomach hurt from laughing so hard. Talk about the selfishness and pretension of the X, Y, or whatever generation–this book is SO it.

Zachary Post is a bit of an a–hole. He’s a middling, middle-twenties article author at a glossy new York magazine who’s very ambitious, but not very talented. He lives in terminal paranoia of (3) things: that his famously forged resume is going to be found out and he’ll be out on his ear, that his two office girlfriends will discover he’s dating both of them, and that the new guy, Mark Larkin, will become Zack’s boss even though he’s even faker and smarmier than Zack (if that’s possible). So, Zack decides to kill him. Just kidding!–at first. Suddenly, it becomes shockingly easy to imagine ways that Mark Larkin could make his final exit. Zack quickly discovers that it’s not hard to be motivated when you’re planning the perfect crime! Quirky and mean-spirited, Slab Rat is the perfect twenty-something-office-drone-slacker novel, kind of like a really nasty Dilbert comic. Great reading for those days when your first-job boss is on the rampage and the copy machine has broken down for the gazillionth time.

Claudia’s job sucks. Instead of being a cool, edgy, famous writer, she’s an assistant to an old, fussy, famous writer (think Danielle Steel at 105) who makes her dig through trash when she loses stuff. Claudia also tends to drink too much, think too much, and mis-manage her over-drawn bank account on a regular basis. Her only solace is hanging out with her best friend William, but even that is beginning to go sour since Claudia thinks she may be in love with him. How much longer will Claudia be able to put off her landlord, lie to her boss and hide her attraction to William? This late 20’s chick is full of slacker angst and that makes gooooood readin’.

This author was suggested to me by very cool Young Adult book editor Sharyn November and I’m oh-so-glad she did because Stripping is super slacker fiction. In these short, short stories, you’ll meet Spike, a punker princess who’s obsessed with seeing Elvis’s bathroom, and Helen, a college freshman who falls hard in her philosophy class for a guy named Nietzsche. Too bad he’s too dead to appreciate it…all in all, this is an eclectic collection of strange stories, each one more weird and wonderful than the last.

Dave is yet another thirty-something guy who’s not ready to turn in his badge of boyhood for the dreaded threads of adult-dom. He’s a member of the Wishbones, a wedding band that rocks the greater New Jersey area. But Dave can’t rock and roll all night anymore since his long-time girlfriend Julie starts making noises that sound suspiciously like wedding bells. Suddenly Dave’s either got to go with the music and follow his dream of being a REAL rock star or marry Julie–neither of which sounds too appealing. So, he puts off his decision by having a steamy affair with this hip NYC poet Gretchen. Heads are gonna roll and guitar strings and hearts are gonna break before the end of this modern slacker classic. Don’t miss a rock-n-roll minute of it! Also, please note Perrotta is the man behind the steamy movie and novel Little Children, and the book/movie combo Election starring Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon.

Bennington Bloom isn’t your ordinary college co-ed. After all, most girls don’t pay their tuition turning tricks. But for Bennington, it’s the only way to pay her way and make the grade. A down and dirty, although not altogether unfunny portrait of a girl on the rocks in New York City. A sad, but touching novel of personal redemption.

At 31, it’s time for Mark, a poet performance artist, to grow-up, but he’s kicking and screaming all the way to adulthood. There’s always someone bigger and better and Mark’s tired of trying to stay on the top of the heap. So he takes a teaching sabbatical to a quiet Oregon college, only to realize that he hasn’t left his bad habits behind, but that they have hopped on the plane and come with him. If you liked the Gen-X reads of Douglas Coupland, you’ll love Exile.

David, Courtney, Jennifer and Mary all just want to get a life. But something always gets in the way, whether its a burned-out apartment or a car-trunk full of the best weed that can be grown north of Portland. Shuttling between Portland and New York, Bongwater examines the slacker lifestyle with a microscope and finds more than you’d expect.