Joy School

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Summary: Joy School/English9
Review: Elizabeth Berg's novel Joy School is a hilarious, but heartbreaking story of a young girls first love. Thirteen-year-old Katie is new to her Missouri town, living alone with her stern father after her mother's death. Trying desperately to fit in at school, Katie makes new friends wherever she can. Katie first makes friends with her new housekeeper, Ginger. Then there is a misfit named Cynthia, with the almost too perfect mother, and then finally the beautiful Taylor; a young model who gets her kicks out of shoplifting. But the most frustrating of Katie's new friendships is that of the very handsome, twenty-three-year-old gas station tenant, Jimmy. This is the first person to really capture Katie's heart.
Berg's Joy School takes place in a small Missouri town in the late 50's and early 60's, where the adolescent army brat, Katie, desperately tries to find her place in life. It is in the small town where Katie finds her first love. It is the first extremely cold day in November, and everything is frozen, including the little pond a couple of blocks away from Katie's house. So, she decides to go ice-skating. While skating on the little pond hidden behind the Mobil Gas Station, she hits a thin part in the ice, and falls through. Luckily, it only goes up to her waste, but the water is so cold, that she can hardly move.
She finally gets out, and walks into the gas station, frozen, and looking for warmth and help. This is where she first meets the first love in her life.
Katie soon finds a couple of new friends in school, and also pursues a relationship with this Jimmy character. She finds that he has her passion for the simple game of checkers, poetry, and reading. She becomes great friends with the beautiful girl Taylor, who has charm enough to make Katie's dad laugh, the absolutely impossible task, and who also teaches Katie a few things about boys, and takes Katie's on her first date. She also finds another unusual friendship with a fellow misfit, who has the coolest grandmother, and the almost too perfect mother, who Katie can't stand.
Throughout the book, Katie grows as a person, and as an adult too. She learns new things with every step she takes. She learns how life isn't always fair, and how good friends are worth pursuing. Katie captures your heart as she takes you on a wild ride through a thirteen-year-old girls life, who finds herself in love, and it all takes place in a point of view that even the simplest of minds could understand.
I completely recommend this book to anyone who likes stories that seem real, and can capture your heart because of it. I loved this book, and even before you read Joy School, take a look at the book Katie first appeared in, Durable Goods. The way Berg writes is completely incredible, she knows how to take simplest of words, and mix them together, to make a flowing, and interesting yet, easy- to-understand novel. Just the way Berg describes Katie's teachers is reason enough to buy this wonderful and delighting book Joy School.

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Summary: All of Berg's books are worth the read!!
Review: You can't go wrong with Elizabeth Berg's stories. If you are looking for a great author that leaves you wanting more this is the one for you! I have read all her books and she makes you feel like you actually know the person in the story. You miss them when the book is done. She is a great Author!!

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Summary: Katie will become a new friend but feel like an old one
Review: Please read Durable Goods first as Joy School is the sequel. While you can probably get by without reading the prequel, I think you'll appreciate the continuation of 12 year old Katie's life more if you know her history. In Joy School we find Katie relocated from Texas to Missouri. It's now just Katie & her dad. In this novel we share in Katie's experience of her first crush and the trials and tribulations of trying to fit in to a new school as a teenager. Berg introduces us to some unique friends for Katie and how she struggles to discover her own identity. Once again, Berg excels at viewing the world from a young girl's perspective. It will remind you of your own youth. Katie feels like a new friend-I only wish we could hear more from her!

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Summary: captures perfectly the angst of adolescence
Review: Berg has done it again -- she has the uncanny ability to capture the inner thoughts of women (in this case, girls) at their most vulnerable. From her gorgeous (but addicted to shoplifting) friend to another friend's overbearing mother, our young narrator captures perfectly the confusion and pain of growing up female. She develops a crush on the handsome gas station attendent who rescues her one day after she falls into the ice and thinks of him even as she has uncomfortable sexual experiences at a drive in movie with her popular friend. Even the lesser characters are well drawn: her friend Cynthia's mother and grandmother, Jimmy and Taylor. Although young teens would love this book (I think it would make them feel that others go through many of these issues), I think the real audience is adults who remember the pain of these years as though it were yesterday. Very touching and affecting.

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Summary: Joy School
Review: Joy School, by Elizabeth Berg, takes place in Missouri. Katie, a freshman in high school is an only child who lives with her sometimes-abusive father. Katie's mother had recently died. At her new high school, Katie has trouble fitting in and she makes very few friends. One friend she makes is a shoplifter, while another one is purely a misfit. Katie's neighbors are constantly harassing her with cruel notes left in her bushes in her yard. The housekeeper and Katie's father fall in love, making Katie's life even more complicated. Also, Katie's sister had moved away, gotten pregnant, and got married. While ice-skating in a pond one day near a gas station, Katie falls through the ice. She is rescued by, in her opinion, a handsome young man and immediately she falls in love with the young man who happens to be a married gas attendant. Katie enjoys telling all of her friends the story of how she found true love. What she doesn't tell them is that the gas attendant is married, and is many years older than her. Hoy School is the story of unrequited love. Katie's thoughts are filled with the gas attendant, Jimmy. Jimmy, although nearly ten years older than Katie, is everything Katie could possibly have hoped for in the man of her dreams...Except for the fact that Jimmy is in love with a wife his own. Katie brings presents and tries to show off for him while ice-skating. The book was interesting but too short. Elizabeth Berg's choice of words made the book very easy to read and therefore was a quick read. Also, if it had been longer, the story probably would have been able to develop more thoroughly then it was written. However, it was still very intriguing and hard to put down. One reason it was so interesting and easy to read was because it was so easy to connect with. Katie is forced to deal with the troubles of a terrible gym teacher, a friend who is hard to resist even with her bad qualities, fitting into a new school whose cliques have already been established, harassment by the new neighbors, and a crushing first love. On top of all of these troubles, Katie must deal with growing up through adolescence with no mother, only a strict father. It seems Joy School is full of new twists just about every page. This also added to my enjoyment of this novel. I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially girls who are Katie's age. They would find this book most enjoyable because they can relate to so much of the book. Overall, it was a great book; but I think it should have been longer because it was so interesting I wanted it to continue.

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Summary: DELIGHTFUL!
Review: A truly delightful coming of age tale! Elizabeth Berg has a knack for capturing the emotions of women and girls. This story will have you laughing out loud one second and dabbing your eyes with a tussue the next!

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Summary: What a sweet book
Review: Elizabeth Berg is one of my favorite authors, mainly because she captures the essence of how women (or girls, in this case) feel- this is truly her gift.

Joy School was such a sweet, quick read and when you are finished you will want to read it over again.

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Summary: A book that will leave a smile on your face
Review: This book had me laughing out loud. I loved it. Just about anyone can relate to a first crush. Katie has a great spirit and is so real. It brought back so many funny memories from when I had my first crush, and second. It's a must read.

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Summary: Adolescence is not such a Joy
Review: "Joy School" is the first book that I have read by Elizabeth Berg, but it won't be my last.

Katie, the daughter of a stern U.S. Army Col. is dealing with the onset of adolescence without the benefit of her mother's guiding hand because her mother is dead. She is in a new school, trying to make new friends and dealing with the effects of her first intense crush on an older man.

It is a sweet story told simply, if a little self-consciously and is apparently part of at least a three book series that follows Katie from childhood, into adolescence and then into adulthood. This is the fist book that I have read by Berg but I look forward to reading her other books.

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Summary: A joy, but not Berg's best effort!
Review: I did not read "Durable Goods" and did not realize this was a continuation. However, Joy School took me back to a younger, more innocent time of my life and for that alone, it was worth the read. While this is a pleasant way to spend time in a waiting room or on an airplane, it's not a book that will stick to your ribs. It's simply a pleasant companion for an afternoon and then its gone. This is very unlike other Berg books that I have read and loved. While not her best effort, it's still fun to read. "Talk Before Sleep" and "Open House" are much better Berg novels and will stay with you for sustained periods after the final page is done. Still, I wouldn't want to dissuade anyone from picking up Joy School--I'm sure you'll enjoy it, you'll laugh, you might cry--but you will be moved emotionally at some level. This is one great author! Her simple prose and straight from the heart writing is such a welcome relief from some of the often painfully contrived popular writers of the day. Keep em coming Elizabeth!