Heartbreak and Roses : Real-Life Stories of Troubled Love

Presenting firsthand accounts of teen love gone wrong, a collection of violent and obsessive young adult relationships recounts the bittersweet stories about finding and keeping love at all costs.

In this compassionate and compelling work, Bode ( The Voices of Rape ) and Village Voice cartoonist Mack assemble a dozen real-life stories from teenagers involved in various types of relationships, both positive and negative. While sex is a concern common to many of the stories, the collection explores a wide variety of other issues--coping with a disability, violence, interracial dating, self-acceptance, codependence and breaking up among them. Unobtrusive onlookers who offer neither answers nor judgments, Bode and Mack relay each story as if merely transcribing the words of its narrator. Nor have they, apparently, toned down their subjects' language. When Suki frankly discusses being raped by a boyfriend, the pain feels real, as does the healing she experiences through the understanding of her current boyfriend. Seth's emotional turmoil when he discovers that he is gay, and the way he deals with a crush on a good friend, reflect the loneliness of the many gay teens who feel alienated from their peers. Two segments, one about a girl involved with a racist skinhead and the other about the trials of unrequited love, are effectively rendered as cartoons ("Think of them as videos in book form," write these canny authors). Fact boxes scattered between chapters contain salient newspaper articles and statistics about teen sexuality. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This is nonfiction on the raw, cutting edge, complete with Village Voice cartoonist Mack's illustrations to tell two of the stories, one about a young woman whose boyfriend's adult aspirations include joining the Klan. Violent, possessive love is not uncommon in the 12 stories featured, and the teens involved repeatedly trust too early or fall time after time for the lure of love as a way to solve problems. Headings jump out at the reader with their intensity, e.g., ``control,'' ``threats''; fact boxes appear here and there to add to data, a sample being information on courting as a ``game of abuse.'' The stories are more than eye- opening, perhaps the most moving being a tale of a girl in a wheelchair who has the least ease in staking out her love but nevertheless shows the most ego strength. Most of the other stories are turmoil-filled, from suicide attempts to a character's matter- of-fact revelation of having been ``raped so many times.'' One story's title, ``Naked Alone Together,'' tells it all. (Nonfiction. 12+) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Gr. 7-12. Although love is a prime teenage concern and the stuff of countless YA novels, it's rarely the subject of teen nonfiction. Bode and Mack take a swing at changing that, but instead of trying to explain what love is, they concentrate on what it isn't. Offering 12 real-life stories, 2 in cartoon form, they explore "love gone wrong"--abusive, obsessive, irresponsible love. Related in teens' own halting words, the accounts have the awkwardness and spontaneity of confidences exchanged with close friends. Whether it's a disabled teen talking about the practicalities of having sex, someone involved in an abusive relationship, or a gay youth whose first lover pretends their intimacy never happened, the stories are candid--about love, about pain, and about sex. And as in real life, they often have no satisfying conclusion. Mack's stories in cartoon are nicely done and a good change of pace, but they lack the intimate quality of the narratives. Unlike some of Bode's other books, this contains no commentary to help kids put what they read into perspective; the kids' recollections, however, usually get the point across quite well. Stephanie Zvirin