A bad boy can be good for a girl

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Josie, Nicolette and Aviva are three very different girls who all meet the same bad boy with an irresistible knack for getting into their blood and under their skin. Each is sure that she can keep a cool head about him, but how much are they really in control?
A critical and word-of-mouth success in the US, this is a compulsive read that opens up the questions about love and sex that every girl needs to know.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

Josie For the Record I'm not stuck up. I'm confident. There's a big difference. If I was stuck up I'd be one of those "Oh look at me, I'm so pretty" girls instead of just appreciating the fact that my cinnamon skin looks good year-round and I can hop in the shower after soccer or lacrosse, throw on a clean sweatshirt, sweep on some mascara, let my hair loose from its pony, and give any girl a serious run for her money. And while I totally deserve my spot in Honors English I'm happy to take my proper place in Algebra I, suffering alongside the rest of the mediocre math heads. So, as far as high school boys go, I'm not so floundering in self-esteem issues that I need someone's arm to hang on or someone's jersey number to cheer for to be a legitimate person, like some people I know. Man, to listen to Kim and Caroline chatter away all summer you'd think we've been waiting our whole pathetic lives just to graduate middle school and get to Point Beach High so we could date high school boys. As if high school boys hold some kind of magical key to who we all really are. The Whole Truth All that stuff I just said is absolutely swear-to-God true, but the rest of the truth the whole truth is lately I don't have as tight a grip on my confidence as usual. I mean, this is high school. Sure, I was pretty popular in middle school, but you never know how these things are going to turn out. What if what Kim and Caroline call my natural look is considered totally lame in high school? What if wanting to read during lunch makes me a total geek? What if I don't fit in at all? Jigsaw It's funny how one night can change the way you look at certain things. I mean, I believe 100 percent that high school boys don't hold any magical key or anything but that's not the same as saying they're all bad. Some of them aren't so bad. Like, maybe, this one. I saw him across the gym before he saw me. He was scoping things out at the Fall Fling, looking for that one lucky freshman to win the prize of dancing with the studly senior. I think he picked me because I looked right at him as if I couldn't care less. I couldn't care more. My heart was pounding, palms sweaty. Hit me like a surprise party you cross-your-heart had no idea anyone was throwing you. Now, I have never understood all that he's-my-other-half soul mate stuff or when people sometimes talk about having an empty space inside or that they're missing pieces or something. But then he walked over and fit himself right into my puzzle. First (Real) Date: Part One I think Mom is a little bit worried the first guy I'm dating is a senior. She should know me better than that. I never do anything I don't want to do. That's not going to change. I mean, when everyone thought it was so cool to sit on the seawall and puff through a pack of Marlboro Lights, I had a blast sitting there laughing, telling them how truly stupid and uncool they really were, actually, coughing and sputtering and wanting to puke, yeah, real sexy, dopes. Give me some credit. I never do anything I don't want to do. Period. He picks me up in his brand-new Mazda Miata. I hate to admit it, but he kind of cracked my cool-as-a-cucumber exterior I tried to pull off at the dance (even though I'm hoping he didn't notice I talked way too fast) but now all he's talking about is how many horsepowers his stupid car has and the torque and how he almost picked cherry red but he's so stoked that they had this sweet ocean color come in at the last minute and I'm starting to think maybe I made a big mistake, but I just smile and nod, like the idiotic bobblehead planted in the middle of his dashboard, pretending this is the most interesting conversation ever. Man, I hope he doesn't keep this up too long. We pull in to Smiles. The parking lot is alive, too many radio stations blaring kids making out in cars sitting on hoods eating hot dogs high-fiving smoking various things drinking various things talking too loud about nothing. Real fun. Inside the scene isn't all that different, except it's another kind of dark punctuated by the bright lights of too many pulsing video games jammed up against each other. We walk over to a big bunch of seniors by the batting cages he drapes his arm around me real possessive, which should have immediately brought out my I-can-take-care-of-myself attitude, but instead stirs this way-foreign tingly "Oh my God, he really likes me" rush. (Lame! Did I just actually think that?) "Dude!" "Who's the babe? Freshmeat?" one of the jocks says, right in front of my face. "Get it? Freshmen, freshmeat?" He's laughing hysterically, like this is the most hilarious thing anyone has ever heard. "Yeah, got it. Guys, this is Josie." A round of Hi's, How's It Goin's, and What's Up's are tossed in my general direction. "Hi." I never thought this scene would interest me but actually, I feel really, I don't know, included, I guess, with his arm wrapped around me pulling me into a group-- and not just any group: the coolest, most popular group of seniors, even though the guys are fairly juvenile. "Hey, we're all heading over to Lindsey's in a while," one of the boys says. "Time to party!" "Okay. We'll hit that, too. All right, Jos?" "Okay. Sure." Although I'm not at all sure because my Mom would freak if she knew I was going to a senior party. First (Real) Date: Part Two We hang out at Smiles for a while, eat some truly nasty pizza, then head over to Lindsey's. On the drive over he rests his hand on my thigh, "Are you having a good time?" "Yes." "Good, I'm glad. I want you to have fun." His hand is still on my thigh. He's going on and on about something, his car again, I think, but I can't concentrate with his fingers moving back and forth like that and even though he's acting real innocent, like he's got no goal or anything, the heat from his fingers is searing through to my skin like one of those iron-on transfers. I could almost bet when I look later his handprint will have been permanently imprinted on my leg. Then he raises the stakes. He moves his hand onto mine picks it up and puts it on his thigh. He takes his eyes off the road for a second looks at me and smiles. Like the big bad wolf. If I was in a comic strip, there'd be a bubble coming out of my head with the word "Gulp" in it. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl by Tanya Lee Stone All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

School Library Journal Review

Gr 9 Up-Three girls succumb to the charms of one sexy high school senior and emerge wiser for the experience in this energetic novel in verse. Josie is a self-assured freshman who values her girlfriends over boys until a hot jock focuses his attention on her and her simmering hormones break into a full boil. Confused by her behavior, yet unable to control her desire, she acts out every romantic clich? she has ever disdained, until the boy drops her and she experiences the chill of rejection. It is Judy Blume's Forever that sparks Josie's fire again, and finding a few blank pages at the back of the library's copy, she sends a warning to the girls of her school. Next readers meet Nicolette, a junior who sees her sexuality as power. A loner, she's caught by surprise at her own reaction when this popular boy takes notice of her. Suddenly she thinks she sees the difference between sex and love, and then, just as suddenly, he's gone. Finally, Aviva, a pretty, smart, artsy, and funny senior, is stunned when the jock seems to want her. She gives up her virginity, only to be disappointed in both the sex and the boy. Furious, Aviva heads to the library to check out Forever, now crammed with the words of girls who suffered the same fate at the hands of the same boy. The free verse gives the stories a breathless, natural flow and changes tone with each narrator. The language is realistic and frank, and, while not graphic, it is filled with descriptions of the teens and their sexuality. This is not a book that will sit quietly on any shelf; it will be passed from girl to girl to girl.-Susan Oliver, Tampa-Hillsborough Public Library System, FL (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Gr. 10--12. Sweetie, we call it making love, they don't. Three girls experience heartbreak after a nameless jock dumps each of them. Josie, a freshman, is devastated when she overhears, Have you nailed her yet? She escapes with her virginity intact, alerting future victims by scribbling a warning on the blank pages of the library's copy of Judy Blume's Forever. Nicolette, a junior, declares that sex is all about power: If I say who / and I say when / and I say what / then I / have it. She's dismayed when she realizes she's not in control this time. Aviva, a senior, loses her virginity after ignoring her friend's warning: He's\b not\b different. He's playing you.\b Stone's novel in verse, more poetic prose than poetry, packs a steamy, emotional wallop, and naked dips in a hot tub, oral sex, and sex in a car suggest a mature audience, even though the sex isn't graphic. The lessons learned here, however, are important: the girls realize they'll be hurt again, but they are now Forewarned / Forearmed / Forever. --Cindy Dobrez Copyright 2006 Booklist

Horn Book Review

(High School) ""Stupid / humiliated / foolish / stung / heartbroken / pissed off / and a little / bit / wiser."" High school freshman Josie sums up how she feels after falling for an only-out-for-one-thing senior, and she isn't alone. The three (very different) teen girl narrators in this candid free-verse novel form a chorus of varied perspectives on how a ""bad boy"" -- the same boy for all three -- causes them to lose control before they even realize what's happening. Stone's portrayal of the object of their (dis)affection is stereotyped, but the three girls are distinct characters, and she conveys the way the girls' bodies and brains respond to the unnamed everyjerk in electrically charged (and sexually explicit) detail. Finally returning to her senses, Josie decides to post warnings about her ex in the back of the school library's copy of Judy Blume's Forever... because ""every girl reads it eventually."" Others add their own caveats in a reassuring show of sisterhood. As this scribbled ""support group"" illustrates, even the most careful and self-aware among us sometimes gets bitten by the snake in the grass. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Book Review

Three high-school girls take turns relating their separate experiences with the same bad boy, a senior jock who seems only interested in one thing: "nailing" them. There's enough in this verse novel to make a grown woman cringe--remembering what it was like back then and that the more things change they stay the same. These narrators, despite their varied backgrounds and ambitions, are interested in, well, the physical realm of boy/girl relations and are willing to kiss and tell: They speak poetry of pedestrian language, which, at its most varied, describes erotic outings and, in one instance, oral sex. High school girls with uncomplicated reading agendas might find this brain candy gratifying. But those with SATs on their minds will find this shallow, repetitive and empty. (Fiction. YA) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.