My Darling, My Hamburger

Rating:
Summary: EXCELLENT
Review: I thought that it was a very good book. It really made me think which is hard because I'm not a big reader. It delt with two high schoolers and every thing that can happen to them now these days.

Rating:
Summary: It was Great!
Review: I thought this book was good cuz it made me think about life. I thought that I was pregnant once so I understood what Liz was going through. Well, at least some of the stuff she went through. It also shows at the end how even though a couple breaks up they can still be friends.

Rating:
Summary: Horrible
Review: If there is any tool of education which highlights our depraved society, it is this book. I am sure Paul Zindel means well, but his outlook on human life is simplistic at best and cynical at worst. The man clearly believes humanity is a small step above animals, and that our children should be raised to accept their fate in this Ricki Lake world in which we live.

This is the sort of book that turns children into sex and relationship obsessed creatures, consumed with nothing but the desire to eat and procreate. It is for those who desire nothing more than to live like cattle, with some improved diversion courtesy other human inventors (ie television).

What is even worse is reading the reviews of this book... Wow.

Rating:
Summary: My Darling My Hamburger
Review: In My Darling, My Hamburger, they talk about many topics amoung teens today. In the book a senior named Liz faces problems like: I love my boy friend, but do I love him enough to have sex with him; and If I do get pregnant what will I do? Will I have the baby or get an abortion? Paul Zindel did a great job writting this book. It expresses many problems that teens face today like dating, sex, teenage pregnancy, and many others. This book was one of the best books I have read ever.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth
Review: In My Darling, My Hamburger, they talk about many topics amoung teens today. In the book a senior named Liz faces problems like: I love my boy friend, but do I love him enough to have sex with him; and If I do get pregnant what will I do? Will I have the baby or get an abortion? Paul Zindel did a great job writting this book. It expresses many problems that teens face today like dating, sex, teenage pregnancy, and many others. This book was one of the best books I have read ever.

Rating:
Summary: This book remind me of my life
Review: Like this book because it is just like my life in a lot of was. For one I'm a teenage and have a baby. This book teach me in a lot of way. Out of all the books I read this is the best.My darling,My hamburger is a good book if it didn't live you hang at the end what hope to whom and did they go to collage or not.

Rating:
Summary: It was really good
Review: Maggie and Liz get into a lot of trouble these days being in class mucking around and a lot of boy trouble I recommend this book to those who have situations that trouble them with adolecent lives.

Rating:
Summary: My Darling, My Hamburger
Review: My Darling,My Hambuger is a well written novel by Paul Zindel that might illustrtate the life of a teen durign hi high school years.This novel focuses on four teens and the struggles they go through while growing up. Paul focuses on the problems of an intimate relationship and the decisions the teens make at that moment. While this book explores issues of teens I highly recommend it to others. This novel focuses on the issue of sex and it helps teenagers understand how complicated it gets if the teenager decides to develope a intimid relationship. The novel ilustrates how some parents ignore this issue and it also mentions how some parents deal with it. Overall this novel is very interesting and short. Paul really emphasizes what sex can lead to and at the same time gets into teenagers head to really think about doing things out before executing them. Even though this book is mainy aim at teenagers in American cultureparents and others culture can relate to them. The story gives hidden messages about how a parent can help a teen age son or daughter instead of ignoring them.

Rating:
Summary: Can I have some fries with that shake?
Review: Some early young adult novels (it's a fairly new form of literature, you know) age gracefully and seamlessly. I'm thinking of course of Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War" and (to a lesser extent), S.E. Hinton's, "The Outsiders". Unfortunately, I have a nasty suspicion that these books are the exception rather than the rule. For every "Forever" there's a "My Darling, My Hamburger" that contains a great story bogged down by changes in the world. While Paul Zindel's classic tale of four teenagers and their relationship problems is at times both moving and perfectly toned, mostly the problems presented in it are as dated as they come. Even a plot synopsis makes this apparent.

Friends Maggie and Liz aren't exactly close, but they hang out frequently together. Liz is the more beautiful and popular of the two with Maggie often following behind. When Liz and her boyfriend Sean decide to hook up Maggie with his friend Dennis, the blind date is as incredibly awkward as they come. Throughout the book the narrative switches between Maggie and her tentative relationship with Dennis and Liz's problems with Sean. Sean, like any normal teenager, is as horny as they come and is continually pressuring Liz to have sex. She'd like to, but she worries that it might end up in pregnancy. Unsurprisingly, that is exactly what happens and soon the big question in the book is whether or not Sean will do the honorable thing and marry Liz (!!) or if Liz will seek out an illegal abortion on her own.

It's this last plotline that struck me as dated. The book was originally written in 1969, a full three years before Roe V. Wade and in many ways this abortion issue (while it still looms large) isn't the same. Sure, many girls will sweat over what to do with an unplanned pregnancy, but crossing the border to a state where abortion is legal is probably a more up-to-date literary solution than getting a back alley job. Then there's the debate about whether a girl should marry the guy who gets her pregnant, regardless of how old they are or what their future plans are. Maybe there are pockets of the country where this really is the only honorable solution to such a problem, but it's really not how the majority of teens would handle it today. The book is additionally riddled with small cultural time capsules as well. Talk about how Orientals kill themselves for honor, going to the movie theater to watch a documentary on pygmies, and the complete and total lack of any mention of STDs all combine to make this book an interesting window into the past.

To some degree it does still speak to teens today. I was especially amused by the Sex Ed. teacher's advice on how to stop a guy from going all the way, (suggest going out for a hamburger). The characters were interesting as well. Liz, unfortunately, isn't a character you're going to identify with intrinsically. Yes, it's sad that she doesn't get along with her parents. But she's such a self-absorbed person, constantly ridiculing her best friend and at the same time dragging Maggie into horrid and uncomfortable situations, that by the end you feel zippo pity for her. In fact, you're supposed to end this story hating and pitying Sean who got her pregnant in the first place. Curse those lustful young men that refuse to marry their knocked up girlfriends! Curse them! This book probably read very well in the 1970s and I could even see it having some interesting points in the 1980s. But by the 1990s with the advent of AIDS better known and the options available to teens widening, books like this one began to read more as cautionary tales than as contemporary novels. I've no doubt that "My Darling, My Hamburger" was riveting and shocking when it first came out. Unfortunately, that's certainly no longer the case. I recommend it as a glimpse into the America that once was. If you'd like to know more about the history of the Young Adult novel, this is a good book to pick up. Just don't expect it to have too many insights to offer today. I'm afraid it's no longer that meaningful.

Rating:
Summary: Can I have some fries with that shake?
Review: Some early young adult novels (it's a fairly new form of literature, you know) age gracefully and seamlessly. I'm thinking of course of Robert Cormier's "The Chocolate War" and (to a lesser extent), S.E. Hinton?s, "The Outsiders". Unfortunately, I have a nasty suspicion that these books are the exception rather than the rule. For every "Forever" there's a "My Darling, My Hamburger" that contains a great story bogged down by changes in the world. While Paul Zindel's classic tale of four teenagers and their relationship problems is at times both moving and perfectly toned, mostly the problems presented in it are as dated as they come. Even a plot synopsis makes this apparent.

Friends Maggie and Liz aren't exactly close, but they hang out frequently together. Liz is the more beautiful and popular of the two with Maggie often following behind. When Liz and her boyfriend Sean decide to hook up Maggie with his friend Dennis, the blind date is as incredibly awkward as they come. Throughout the book the narrative switches between Maggie and her tentative relationship with Dennis and Liz's problems with Sean. Sean, like any normal teenager, is as horny as they come and is continually pressuring Liz to have sex. She'd like to, but she worries that it might end up in pregnancy. Unsurprisingly, that is exactly what happens and soon the big question in the book is whether or not Sean will do the honorable thing and marry Liz (!!) or if Liz will seek out an illegal abortion on her own.

It's this last plotline that struck me as dated. The book was originally written in 1969, a full three years before Roe V. Wade and in many ways this abortion issue (while it still looms large) isn't the same. Sure, many girls will sweat over what to do with an unplanned pregnancy, but crossing the border to a state where abortion is legal is probably a more up-to-date literary solution than getting a back alley job. Then there's the debate about whether a girl should marry the guy who gets her pregnant, regardless of how old they are or what their future plans are. Maybe there are pockets of the country where this really is the only honorable solution to such a problem, but it's really not how the majority of teens would handle it today. The book is additionally riddled with small cultural time capsules as well. Talk about how Orientals kill themselves for honor, going to the movie theater to watch a documentary on pygmies, and the complete and total lack of any mention of STDs all combine to make this book an interesting window into the past.

To some degree it does still speak to teens today. I was especially amused by the Sex Ed. teacher's advice on how to stop a guy from going all the way, (suggest going out for a hamburger). The characters were interesting as well. Liz, unfortunately, isn't a character you're going to identify with intrinsically. Yes, it's sad that she doesn't get along with her parents. But she's such a self-absorbed person, constantly ridiculing her best friend and at the same time dragging Maggie into horrid and dangerous situations, that by the end you feel zippo pity for her. In fact, you're supposed to end this story hating and pitying Sean who got her pregnant in the first place. Curse those lustful young men that refuse to marry their knocked up girlfriends! Curse them! This book probably read very well in the 1970s and I could even see it having some interesting points in the 1980s. But by the 1990s with the advent of AIDS better known and the options available to teens widening, books like this one began to read more as cautionary tales than as contemporary novels. I've no doubt that "My Darling, My Hamburger" was riveting and shocking when it first came out. Unfortunately, that's certainly no longer the case. I recommend it as a glimpse into the America that once was. If you'd like to know more about the history of the Young Adult novel, this is a good book to pick up. Just don't expect it to have too many insights to offer today. I'm afraid it's no longer that meaningful.