Sloppy Firsts is the first book (get it?) in a series about pornaliciously named Jersey high schooler Jessica Darling, told through a series of letters and diary entries. The book is pretty much what you’d expect with architypical bimbos, jocks, stoners, self-proclaimed cool kids, and peer-proclaimed cool kids (aka: “cool kids”).
Jessica, despite being one of the smartest kids in her school and a top athelete, is, as expected, angsty. Partly because the book opens with her best friend moving to Tennessee, and partly because she’s a teenaged girl and you just can’t write a book about a teenaged girl without her being angsty. Guess what she’s angsty about.
If you picked her lame friends, lamer parents, school of people who don’t get her, and sexual frustration, you’re right (and you’ve been a kid before).
While the characters aren’t particularly unique and the conflicts have been done before (Catcher in the Rye comes to mind), the writing is delightfully fresh and witty, and some of the characters’ problems are dealt with in interesting, thoughtful ways. Reading about a teenaged girl’s sexual frustration is a little weird though, and a bit close to the child-pornography line. Seriously, there’s some stuff about a young girl’s masturbatory tendencies that I really don’t need to read about.
…Without pictures.
At least she’s of legal age in the later books, so it’s a bit less creepy. And, if you pick up the first book, keep in mind that it was intended to be a series from the start. Most of the conflicts are left unresolved and are picked up later on.
This is so far the best written chick lit I’ve read, but it’s still not quite a literary masterpiece. I’m only on the third book of the series (Charmed Thirds, after Second Helpings), and will revisit the series once I’ve completed it (there are currently five books out), but for now: Three stars.
P.S.: McCafferty has a young son. I wonder how many hours of therapy he’ll need if he reads the series.
