August 21, 2007

Growing Pains

“The Worst Years of Your Life,” by Mark Jude Poirer

You remember middle school as a blur of tether ball scrapes, mystery meat, and orthodontist visits (their cruel convergence boggled the mind).

Some call them wonder years. You wonder how you made it out alive.

Screenwriter and novelist Mark Jude Poirier reminds you in his new book of short stories, The Worst Years of Your Life: Stories for the Geeked-Out, Angst-Ridden, Lust-Addled, and Deeply Misunderstood Adolescent in All of Us.

Poirier collected the work of twenty authors (like Jennifer Egan and Nathan Englander) with spot-on takes on awkward, painful, snicker fit-inducing times in junior high.

In A.M. Homes’s “A Real Doll,” a boy fantasizes about dating his sister’s Barbie. Alicia Erian’s “Alcatraz” chronicles a nerdy overweight spelling bee winner’s secret affair with the most popular kid in school.

The tales are so crazy, inappropriate, and embarrassing that you can’t help but relate.

Just call it this summer’s required reading.

Available online at amazon.com or your local bookstore.