Dear Teen Me: Authors Write Letters to Their Teen Selves [Paperback]

Thank you to Zest Books for this ARC! Read more at My Life is a Notebook or [...].

You may notice that this book has no rating. Certainly it will have to have one on Amazon, Goodreads and the like because they demand it, but Dear Teen Me is, to me, a book that transcends ratings.

What is a rating, anyways? It is a mark of sometimes good technical storytelling, other times it is because of a person's simple like or dislike of a book. With Dear Teen Me, the former aspect especially holds no place.

Dear Teen Me is not a story. It is a conglomeration of personal, nonfiction stories about the teen years of dozens of YA authors. The concepts of "good technical storytelling" do not apply. The content is just not that kind.

I don't know what I thought when I requested an ARC of this book. Whatever it was, I only know that the book exceeded my expectations. I was certainly expecting a great deal of "Were you an outsider in high school, because it's okay to be weird!" and I got that, but not one of these stories was cheesy. Not one was a cliché of an adult trying to empower a teenager. The topics that these authors went over ranged from self-harm and eating disorders to coming out and dealing with abusive parents--and everything in between. Yes, every story had a happy ending and a moral, but you never felt like you were being told. All of the letters--though in some more than others--I felt as if I was intruding on someone's most personal journal entry, and the that raw emotion on display was not for my eyes.

Dear Teen Me was not a book that I may have picked up of my own volition, simply because I am tired of books where "former teens" share their inspiring stories and tell you how to learn from them. I don't want to hear inspirational "rah rah" stories meant to make me feel better about myself because it's okay to be a broody teenager. The authors who contributed here seemed to understand that. No one is lecturing. No one is pretending that wounds leave no scars. No one is shying away from topics sometimes adults and teens alike are afraid of discussing. No one is censoring a thing.

And why would they? They're writing these for themselves. For their mistakes. For their pain. They just happen to be gracious enough to allow them to be read by others.

This book is a collection letters written by popular young adult authors to themselves as teens to tell them that essentially, life does get better. Well, in some cases, it does get way worse than better, but eventually, things do look up. There are all kinds of confessions involved here, some of my favorite authors have dealt with illness, abuse and more adversaries that make my life look like a fairy tale. Most have been threatened by bullies, a lot have had family members die, suffer from drug abuse or even worse.

I had no idea that these authors had to deal with these situations while growing up. It is amazing that some survived at all and a lot of them have incorporated their experiences into their work. It is truly eye opening. Some of my favorites were from Carrie Jones where she explains that a horrible encounter with a boy ended with her having epilepsy. The letter from Ilsa Bick was heart rendering as she talks about her father who was the only survivor of a Nazi death camp. There are also a few lighthearted moments where authors name their celebrity crushes. I wish I would have found the tumblr site for this book before it was released. I am going to send it to every teen I know.

I sometimes wish that I could whisper to myself through time. I wish I could send myself-at-16 a hug, and say, "It will be okay," or maybe "Honestly, you might be in love with him, but it never WILL work out, for reasons that won't make sense for another 10 years" or "In 30 years when you discover this thing called Facebook you will discover you had more actual friends than you think you do, some of whom you are barely noticing in school." I expect most adults feel the same way, no matter what their childhood or teenage years were like.

That's the inspiration behind this sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes just-okay book. It's a collection of letters that 70 Young Adult authors (mostly novelists but a few other creators such as a cartoonist and poet) wrote to their teenage selves. While the letters-to-me are obviously personal, they are also vignettes into the lives of teenagers EVERYwhere, most of whom feel they have an awful challenge to overcome or feel like an absolute dork. (Or maybe that's just those of us who became writers.)

I admit that I'm only halfway through reading this book, but I don't want to rush myself, and I can already tell you how cool it is.

The letters usually two or three pages long, so -- like a collection of short stories -- one might be inspiring to read, and the next one merely good. Because the authors are, well, AUTHORS, most of the letters are articulate and well written, sharing enough back-story so that you and I can understand what the author is talking about. It might be an author telling his teen self that it'd be a good idea to admit to himself that he's gay, or another author explaining that her self-image isn't what the other kids actually think of her. Or... well, it's 70 different stories, most of which have a happy ending (assuming you believe "Now I am a published author" is a happy ending, as well as "eventually you will find someone who appreciates you as you are"). I do find it inspiring reading, anyway, or at least worthwhile to soak up (true) short stories about how someone yanked herself out of a terrible start. (Because some of them are terrible indeed.)

Although I have read several YA novels, I'm not really familiar with these authors. As much as I like the book, I bet I'd like it a lot more if I'd read their work. (In some cases I'm going to go out of my way to look for these writers, since each letter ends with a short current biography, what the author has written, and a photo of teen-self.)

The one thing I am NOT sure of is what a teenager would think of Dear Teen Me. I know it's meaningful to me as an adult because most of us wish we could change at least one decision. But would it help an angst-ridden 15-year-old (and honestly, aren't they all?) recognize that even those he admires had a hard time? I don't have that many teenagers in my life anymore, and only one upon whom I'd like to shove some life direction ("Listen to me: Make up your own mind!" Well no, that won't cut it) and I just can't guess whether giving her this book would be a welcome gift or a reason for a deep sigh of exasperation and put-upon eye-rolling. But heck, get it for yourself, and then pass it on to the kid if your nearby teenager seems open to the idea. (And let me know how it goes, too. I'm curious.)