Paperback Crush
Books | Humor / Form / Essays
3.7
Gabrielle Moss
For fans of vintage YA, a humorous and in-depth history of beloved teen literature from the 1980s and 1990s, full of trivia and pop culture fun. Those pink covers. That flimsy paper. The nonstop series installments that hooked readers throughout their entire adolescence. These were not the serious-issue novels of the 1970s, nor the blockbuster YA trilogies that arrived in the 2000s. Nestled in between were the girl-centric teen books of the ’80s and ’90s—short, cheap, and utterly adored. In Paperback Crush, author Gabrielle Moss explores the history of this genre with affection and humor, highlighting the best-known series along with their many diverse knockoffs. From friendship clubs and school newspapers to pesky siblings and glamorous beauty queens, these stories feature girl protagonists in all their glory. Journey back to your younger days, a time of girl power nourished by sustained silent reading. Let Paperback Crush lead you on a visual tour of nostalgia-inducing book covers from the library stacks of the past.
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More Details:
Author
Gabrielle Moss
Pages
256
Publisher
Quirk Books
Published Date
2018-10-30
ISBN
1683690796 9781683690795
Community ReviewsSee all
"Dang, this was a trip down tweenage memory lane! A micro-history about the books teenage girls grew up reading in the 80’s and 90’s. This book brought back some fond memories of stealing my older sister’s paperback books back in the day🤣 ( Thanks Say💕 )
Sweet Valley High
Sleepover Friends
The Baby-Sitters Club
Lurlene McDaniel
R.L. Stine
Girl Talk "
Katie
"This book was interesting to read for a person that wasn't born until the early 2000s and didn't experience this wave of YA books growing up. It was fun to learn about the tropes that were written about 30-40 years ago and how they transformed into what YA is today."
Cathern Young
"Truthfully, I was too young for most of the books and series that were talked about but I recall my eldest sister reading many of these. I only read Babysitters Club and the Little Sisters series she made for middle grade. I do remember reading Pony Pals but she talked more about their predecessors. I really enjoyed the descriptions of some of these books and series because Gabrielle Moss talked about them candidly and, at times with humor that made me laugh out loud. I might now be picking up some of these books, especially the ones written by Christopher Pike, because some of these actually sound good. I also liked that she referenced Michael Cart's Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism which I read in my Young Adult Literature course for my Masters in Library Science degree. I appreciated that Paperback Crush was well researched, interesting and entertaining while covering thrpughly covering a wide range and timeline of YA literature. I highly reccomend this for extended reading on YA Literature but also for those that grew up reading these groundbreaking series and books."
A F
Allison Freeman
"The pure nostalgia of this won me over.it was a good time."
J N
Jennifer Nagano
"If you were an avid reader of YA fiction in the late 70s through early 90s, this is a great trip down memory lane. Moss does a fantastic job at looking at the wider social and literary trends that helped give rise to this "golden era" in YA fiction. "
Laura