Anyone who’s web savvy knows that teenagers have a lot to say. And they’re saying it — at least to each other. A recent book has brought together essays by adolescent girls on everything from body image to school to family.
If you like a good read and you`re interested in finding out what’s important to the youth of today, then Red: The Next Generation of American Writers — Teenage Girls — On What Fires Up Their Lives is for you. An anthology, overseen by former editor of the magazines Seventeen and New York, Amy Goldwasser, the book brings together 58 stories from different young American writers recounting the funniest, most intimate, most dramatic and mundane moments of their lives.
Read it and relive the humiliations of high school gym class. Get the real scoop on ”grinding” at a school dance. Feel the fury and sadness of a kid with divorced parents or the girl who secretly cuts herself. And of course, find out what American girls really think about sex and Johnny Depp. Together and separately.
Don’t let the age of these writers deter you. Their voices come out strong, intensely and without pretense or self-censorship. Raised on a daily diet of e-mailing, blogging, Facebook and MySpace, this generation is well-practiced in the craft of choosing words to tell their intimate lives in public. In an interview with Radar magazine, Goldwasser noted that the girls are “really not afraid of writing. I think blogging has taken away that fear.”
And their age is actually their trump card. If we could all still speak the truth of a sixteen year old, we’d cut through a lot of crap in this world. The writers in Red aren’t concerned with impressing anyone with their style or wit. But they just do while living life in its full intensity and trying to spell it out for us.
This article was published Tuesday, December 11, 2007.
