The Love Letters of J. Timothy Owen - Hardcover

Greene, Constance C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060221577 ISBN 13: 9780060221577

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 1986

Synopsis

After sixteen-year-old Tim Owen's plan to capture Sophie's heart with plagiarized love letters fails, he is forced into escorting his best friend's younger sister to her eighth-grade graduation tea

About this title

From School Library Journal:

Grade 6-8 J. Timothy Owen is one of the last romantics. When, in the same day, he discovers One Hundred of the World's Best Love Letters and the gorgeous Sophie, his imagination runs amok, and the result is disaster. Tim is so taken with the love letters of Rousseau, Lord Nelson, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning that he decides to send them verbatim to Sophie; he is horrified and humiliated at the reaction to his letters. Sophie's father tells the police about the pervert harassing his daughter, and Sophie herself is hurling accusations of "weird" and "sicko" at a totally crushed knight errant. True romance is not easily quashed, however, and Tim's basic good nature carries him through until a new love catches his eye. Greene, veteran of snappy dialogue, genuine humor, and warm family relationships, has created a thoroughly likable hero. With Tim's emotional highs and lows, his questions, fears, and desires, readers see the qualities that make her characters so human and so appealing. A wry and human story that beautifully captures the confusions of growing up. Betty Ann Porter, Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

In her first novel for young adults, Constance Greene seems ill at ease with older readers: the dialogue is strained, and the story flags. Yet the premise, that a boy's first awkward attempts at love might parallel those of his parents, now divorced, to find new partners, is an interesting one. And Greene's half-hopeful, half-irreverent brand of humor leavens the topic well. Sixteen-year-old Tim would like the world to see him as "a slightly off-the-wall, undercover intellectual"; but at such things as escorting his best friend's kid sister to a Catholic-school tea dance, he acts pretty much like many teens wouldembarrassed and foolish. The kid sister, meanwhile, is a fresh and intriguing surprisea bright spot in a somewhat labored, though often funny, book.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 0060221577
• ISBN 13: 9780060221577
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 181