Love & Lies (sequel to Hard Love)

Love & Lies, the sequel to Hard Love, by Ellen Wittlinger continues the story of Gio and Marisol.

Marisol Guzman has put off college for one year in order to write a novel and fall in love. When she signs up for a workshop on writing, one of her classmates is her friend Gio whom she has not seen for a few months.

Now Marisol is reforging her friendship, serving coffee at a cafe, introducing a new friend to Boston, writing, and falling for her writing teacher.

Making some of the same mistakes she has made in the past, Marisol begins a relationship with one person while underestimating the feelings someone else has for her. Will she recognize the pattern? Will she do anything to change it before she breaks someone else's heart?

Marisol is a great character who has some growing up to do - not too surprising since she is eighteen. Her friendship with Gio gives her a foundation to explore her feelings with feedback that she did not have in the previous novel. Wittlinger is a great writer who has created likable character who, I hope, will appear in a few more books...

Wittlinger, Ellen. (2008). Love & Lies. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Hard Love

Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger, Printz Honor Book, is about how John comes to terms with his life, falls in love and figures out who he is.

John decides to write a zine. (For you uncool people - a zine is a homemade magazine). He loves to write and admires some of the other zine writers. He meets Marisol when he waits for her to drop off her latest edition at a Tower Records.

Marisol writes "Escape Velocity." She is a lesbian Puerto Rican Cuban Yankee who lives in Cambridge. John thinks she is the coolest person ever, and knowing she is a lesbian, falls in love with her anyway.

Through a rough friendship, John learns a lot about himself and begins to let himself feel emotions again - something he has no allowed since his parents divorce six years earlier.

Wittlinger's title is from the song Hard Love by folk singer Bob Franke.

Wittlinger, Ellen. (1999). Hard Love. New York: Aladdin.

Parrotfish

Parrotfish by Ellen Wittlinger is about a transgendered teen. Angela, mistakenly born into a girl's body, changes her name to Grady, taking the first outward step to claiming his true self.

But as all 16 year olds, he still has to go to school and deal with other people's reactions.

"People changed lots of other personal things all the time. They dyed their hair and dieted themselves to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breat implants and nose jobs so they'd resemble their favorite movie stars. They changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed religions and political parties. They moved across the country or the world - even changed their nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren't supposed to change?"

Wittlinger, Ellen. (2007). Parrotfish. New York: Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers.