Book Review: Dear Big V by Ellen W. Leroe

Title: Dear Big V

Author: Ellen W. Leroe

Pages: 200

Received from: ATWTs

Summary:

Courtney Condon, a funny, off-beat junior, is caught smack in the middle of the war between the Lewds and the Prudes at Delaware-Valley High School. Court's the founder of an abstinence club at Dull-Val. But when she's assigned an Op Ed piece for the school paper that forces her to work with Lance, the major "player" and hottest guy at school, this up-close and personal contact with Lance throws her into a Whirlwind of Confusion over her chaste ideals. Meanwhile, Courtney's staunchly devout, strict-Catholic mom is pushing her own form of prudishness to the point of alienating the entire family, especially when Mom catches Court in a lip-lock with Lance in his car, right in her very own driveway!

Um, okay. There are a lot of ways to go about discussing the topic of sex and chastidy. But lame jokes, hollow secendary characters, and cheap emotional ploys are not the way to do it.

Courtney's story begins with her having a conversation with her virginity. If that sentence wasn't ridiulous enough to ward you off, then I invite you to continue.

So, chatting with the titular Big V, she introduces herself and the outline of her situation. She then goes on to spill what exactly her virginity told her, which is start from the very beginning of this whole mess and go on from there. Showing mega-signs of schizophrenia, she does.

Alright, let's tackle the elephant on the page; is it or is it not completly wacked out that a story would be told from a girl to her virginity. You know, that state of having never done The Nasty? As in, personifying your hymen. Which is, like, talking with your masculinity, or your race, or gender. Talking with your state of being. I've heard of imaginary friends, but this is a tad ridic, no?

Not only is she talking with her virginity, but she's talking to it as though its a pal, a buddy, a friend. She will then go on to discuss--again, WITH HER VIRGINITY--having sex with her boyfriend. Discuss it. As in, quite literally, she is conversing with someone she loves about taking a BIG OL' PENIS AND BREAKING THEM IN HALF.

DOES THIS NOT SOUND WRONG?

Again, there are oh so many ways to relate chastidy to teens. Unfortunatly, Leroe kind of failed. Instead of, you know, having even and varied Middle Ground between, as she proclaims, "lewds and prudes", she's protraying sexually active teens as slutty bitches and having Presidents of the Virginity Club (literally) as the protagonist, which in itself is forming an incredible bias that no teenager in their right mind would react well to. I mean, I found all this insulting to my intelligence. There's the Super Conservatives, Courtney and a few of her friends (plus one Super Duper Conservative who effectivly BEGINS the lewds vs. prudes battle royale), and the Super Mean and Super Slutty Non-Virgins. Like, holyshit, seventeen year olds can't be sexually active without being bitchy hoes?! I mean, really?

To be fair, I didn't finish. I got to page 178 and just couldn't go on. I thought I might be able to get a discussion going with some of my friends on the blog, but most of them--virginal or otherwise--all basically scoffed and shoved the book back in my hands, procaiming, "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response." Yeah, seriously.

Though Leroe makes a half-assed attempt at stretching the spectrum by making Courtney's friend almost screw her boyfriend, in the end the virgins come out victorious and everyone decided to keep her hymen in tact. Probably so they could continue talking with them.

Alright, I'm gonna end it off here because this entire discussion is getting me kind of annoyed. If anyone has any counter-points, please feel free to comment. But anyone looking for an informative, unbiased look at teen sex, take your buisness elsewhere.

Rating: DNF--Did Not Finish

Also: I'm reminded of this post Alana had about Taylor Swift and how she is, quote, a "feminest nightmare".



Alana had some great points to make about how Taylor isn't really a nightmare and all, but the above picture greatly adds to what I've been saying in this review--as in, the virgin is always the good guy. So yeah.