I bought this book on a lark, feeling nostalgic for the books I read as a pre-teen and remembering this one as one that my BF and I would sneak back and forth between us. That's almost all I remembered about it though and I expected it to be an eye-rolling what was I thinking? trip down memory lane.
Only it wasn't - eye-rolling - that is. It was first published in 1979, but once you get past a very few things that date the book (pay phones and the scandal of "living in sin") what's left is an incredibly relevant story about an intelligent 15 year-old-girl who knows what she wants, isn't afraid to assert herself and is stuck between the parents who are afraid she'll have sex too early and the boyfriend who is afraid she won't. And you know what? The author does a brilliant job of illustrating the stereotypical expectations of both males and females and gives us not only a strong protagonist, but a strong male lead too, who screws up and learns from it.
The best part is the ending that respects the story. I don't think I ever read anything else from Mazer, but I wish my younger self had; I suspect I missed out.