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Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves by Kersten Hamilton, Miranda Kenneally
pumpkinghost24's review against another edition
5.0
It was very good and very insightful and definitely made me think and feel. I wonder what I'd write in a future letter to myself; I can't wait to see.
pussreboots's review against another edition
3.0
http://pussreboots.pair.com/blog/2014/comments_05/dear_teen_me.html
adkwriter15's review
5.0
You may notice that this book has no rating. Certainly it will have to have one on Amazon, Goodreads and the like because they demand it, but Dear Teen Me is, to me, a book that transcends ratings.
What is a rating, anyways? It is a mark of sometimes good technical storytelling, other times it is because of a person’s simple like or dislike of a book. With Dear Teen Me, the former aspect especially holds no place.
Dear Teen Me is not a story. It is a conglomeration of personal, nonfiction stories about the teen years of dozens of YA authors. The concepts of “good technical storytelling” do not apply. The content is just not that kind.
I don’t know what I thought when I requested an ARC of this book. Whatever it was, I only know that the book exceeded my expectations. I was certainly expecting a great deal of “Were you an outsider in high school, because it’s okay to be weird!” and I got that, but not one of these stories was cheesy. Not one was a cliché of an adult trying to empower a teenager. The topics that these authors went over ranged from self-harm and eating disorders to coming out and dealing with abusive parents—and everything in between. Yes, every story had a happy ending and a moral, but you never felt like you were being told. All of the letters—though in some more than others—I felt as if I was intruding on someone’s most personal journal entry, and the that raw emotion on display was not for my eyes.
Dear Teen Me was not a book that I may have picked up of my own volition, simply because I am tired of books where “former teens” share their inspiring stories and tell you how to learn from them. I don’t want to hear inspirational “rah rah” stories meant to make me feel better about myself because it’s okay to be a broody teenager. The authors who contributed here seemed to understand that. No one is lecturing. No one is pretending that wounds leave no scars. No one is shying away from topics sometimes adults and teens alike are afraid of discussing. No one is censoring a thing.
And why would they? They’re writing these for themselves. For their mistakes. For their pain. They just happen to be gracious enough to allow them to be read by others.
What is a rating, anyways? It is a mark of sometimes good technical storytelling, other times it is because of a person’s simple like or dislike of a book. With Dear Teen Me, the former aspect especially holds no place.
Dear Teen Me is not a story. It is a conglomeration of personal, nonfiction stories about the teen years of dozens of YA authors. The concepts of “good technical storytelling” do not apply. The content is just not that kind.
I don’t know what I thought when I requested an ARC of this book. Whatever it was, I only know that the book exceeded my expectations. I was certainly expecting a great deal of “Were you an outsider in high school, because it’s okay to be weird!” and I got that, but not one of these stories was cheesy. Not one was a cliché of an adult trying to empower a teenager. The topics that these authors went over ranged from self-harm and eating disorders to coming out and dealing with abusive parents—and everything in between. Yes, every story had a happy ending and a moral, but you never felt like you were being told. All of the letters—though in some more than others—I felt as if I was intruding on someone’s most personal journal entry, and the that raw emotion on display was not for my eyes.
Dear Teen Me was not a book that I may have picked up of my own volition, simply because I am tired of books where “former teens” share their inspiring stories and tell you how to learn from them. I don’t want to hear inspirational “rah rah” stories meant to make me feel better about myself because it’s okay to be a broody teenager. The authors who contributed here seemed to understand that. No one is lecturing. No one is pretending that wounds leave no scars. No one is shying away from topics sometimes adults and teens alike are afraid of discussing. No one is censoring a thing.
And why would they? They’re writing these for themselves. For their mistakes. For their pain. They just happen to be gracious enough to allow them to be read by others.
reader_fictions's review
3.0
Originally posted on A Reader of Fictions.
Dear Teen Christina,
Life sucks right now, and, I'm not going to lie to you. High school is awful, but at least middle school is over, and, so far, that exists as the nadir of your life, and I hope that does not change (it hasn't yet). Also, in junior year, you'll make a friend, a real one, the kind of friend you'll still talk to when you're unspeakably old (aka 25). Also, teen self, you should know that your fantasies of showing up at your ten year reunion incredibly hot and successful and falling in instalove with [insert one of the innumerable boys you crush on during high school] will not be coming true. Also, instalove is awful. Even in your daydreams, I expect better quality material, okay? Just know, young self, that it will get better.
There's a lot more that I could tell my teen self, because there's a lot that I've learned, even just to the extent of realizing how much I don't know. None of these authors had quite the same experience that I did, but a comment here and an embarrassing moment there spoke to me, just as others would to anyone who picks it up.
Robin Benway wrote one of my favorite letters in the anthology. Her second point begins, "High school stops mattering the second you graduate from it." This is both the truest and least accurate statement in here, I feel, and sort of sums everything up. All of these stories are people coming to terms with their middle school, high school or college experiences. In some stories, you can still feel the vitriol or the sadness, emotions still very close to the surface. These moments have a profound impact on your formation as a person. However, once I graduated from high school, I hardly looked back, and I barely remember a lot of it. The late nights frantically trying to produce a two-week science experiment in three days (you won't get a good grade on that one, self, but you weren't going to anyway) really just won't matter. And, if you don't want to, you won't ever have to see those people again.
At Decatur Book Festival, the moderator of a panel I attended made an observation that no authors of young adult fiction were popular in high school. Well, Dear Teen Me shows that this is not true. In fact, I'd say there's a pretty decent representation of different social cliques in here, although, unsurprisingly, the nerds do predominate. There are some cheerleaders, though, and at least one jock. I liked that, and getting a window into other people's high school experiences has a cathartic feeling to it, because no one had it easy. Growing up hurts.
Dear Teen Me is a brief volume, composed of short snippets, generally two to four pages long. About half of the authors go for silly self-mockery, giving an entertaining account of their teen awkwardness and playing for laughs. Most of the rest focus on a specific issue that will haunt their years, something dark and painful: eating disorders, self-harm, rape, abuse, grief over the loss of a loved one. The honesty of these stories and the bravery of the authors for putting that out there is incredible. A couple stories, sadly, didn't really say anything at all. These I did not approve of.
I whipped through Dear Teen Me in a single evening. For teenagers struggling with feeling at home in their own skin (aka all teenagers) or for those of us who still have some things from our teen years we need to get over, Dear Teen Me is a powerful read to help us feel just a little bit less alone. Also, you can see what all of the authors looked like in high school (in fact, Sean Beaudoin's letter will be all about his emo, artsy photograph), which I love.
Dear Teen Christina,
Life sucks right now, and, I'm not going to lie to you. High school is awful, but at least middle school is over, and, so far, that exists as the nadir of your life, and I hope that does not change (it hasn't yet). Also, in junior year, you'll make a friend, a real one, the kind of friend you'll still talk to when you're unspeakably old (aka 25). Also, teen self, you should know that your fantasies of showing up at your ten year reunion incredibly hot and successful and falling in instalove with [insert one of the innumerable boys you crush on during high school] will not be coming true. Also, instalove is awful. Even in your daydreams, I expect better quality material, okay? Just know, young self, that it will get better.
There's a lot more that I could tell my teen self, because there's a lot that I've learned, even just to the extent of realizing how much I don't know. None of these authors had quite the same experience that I did, but a comment here and an embarrassing moment there spoke to me, just as others would to anyone who picks it up.
Robin Benway wrote one of my favorite letters in the anthology. Her second point begins, "High school stops mattering the second you graduate from it." This is both the truest and least accurate statement in here, I feel, and sort of sums everything up. All of these stories are people coming to terms with their middle school, high school or college experiences. In some stories, you can still feel the vitriol or the sadness, emotions still very close to the surface. These moments have a profound impact on your formation as a person. However, once I graduated from high school, I hardly looked back, and I barely remember a lot of it. The late nights frantically trying to produce a two-week science experiment in three days (you won't get a good grade on that one, self, but you weren't going to anyway) really just won't matter. And, if you don't want to, you won't ever have to see those people again.
At Decatur Book Festival, the moderator of a panel I attended made an observation that no authors of young adult fiction were popular in high school. Well, Dear Teen Me shows that this is not true. In fact, I'd say there's a pretty decent representation of different social cliques in here, although, unsurprisingly, the nerds do predominate. There are some cheerleaders, though, and at least one jock. I liked that, and getting a window into other people's high school experiences has a cathartic feeling to it, because no one had it easy. Growing up hurts.
Dear Teen Me is a brief volume, composed of short snippets, generally two to four pages long. About half of the authors go for silly self-mockery, giving an entertaining account of their teen awkwardness and playing for laughs. Most of the rest focus on a specific issue that will haunt their years, something dark and painful: eating disorders, self-harm, rape, abuse, grief over the loss of a loved one. The honesty of these stories and the bravery of the authors for putting that out there is incredible. A couple stories, sadly, didn't really say anything at all. These I did not approve of.
I whipped through Dear Teen Me in a single evening. For teenagers struggling with feeling at home in their own skin (aka all teenagers) or for those of us who still have some things from our teen years we need to get over, Dear Teen Me is a powerful read to help us feel just a little bit less alone. Also, you can see what all of the authors looked like in high school (in fact, Sean Beaudoin's letter will be all about his emo, artsy photograph), which I love.
hollowspine's review
2.0
I reserved this book from the library thinking it would be interesting to read authors letters to themselves as teenagers, I thought perhaps it might give me some insight into teenage lives, but I found most of the letters...a bit dull. If I had looked more closely at the contents before reserving the book I would have realized that I had not read a single one of the contributing authors.
I thought that I read enough teen lit that there would be at least a couple whom I would recognize, but sadly it was not true. I had not only not read these authors, but with only a few exceptions will most likely not read anything by them in the future.
I think that I was not really the right audience for this piece of work. I was annoyed when the writers wouldn't 'spoil' the future for their past selves and therefore left out what sounded like interesting stories. I was bored when the letters talked of the typical teenage dramas and in-jokes between past and future populars.
I thought that I read enough teen lit that there would be at least a couple whom I would recognize, but sadly it was not true. I had not only not read these authors, but with only a few exceptions will most likely not read anything by them in the future.
I think that I was not really the right audience for this piece of work. I was annoyed when the writers wouldn't 'spoil' the future for their past selves and therefore left out what sounded like interesting stories. I was bored when the letters talked of the typical teenage dramas and in-jokes between past and future populars.
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