She Loves You

Submitted by dmacdonell on Sun, 2009-10-04 14:59

She Loves You

By Rhonda Batchelor

978-1-55002-789-1
July 2008
136pp, Paperback
$11.99 CAD

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Canadian Batchelor serves up a complex tale about a strong girl living among confused friends and judgmental bullying ... The book is a relaxing cultural-immersion into the late 1960s, reveling in the way art can tie us all together. But it is embedded with a harrowing truth that continues today: some friends and lovers won't always be on your side.

Calgary Herald, The

Although it is 1969 and the end of a decade that has brought tremendous social change even in southweatern Ontario, 14-year-old Annie Ward has experienced little of "love, peace, and understanding." A diehard Beatles fan and highly intelligent but lacking in social graces, Annie is still grieving over the death of her father and also misses Zoe, the one "best" friend she ever had, who has moved away due to less-than-friendly circumstances.

Lonely but proud, Annie has distanced herself from everyone, even her mother. then, amid highschool rumours of her supposed homosexuality, Annie is challenged by her guidance counsellor to confront her "problems" by writing about them. In an awkward attempt to make friends, she is drawn to a group of ragtag local hippies. One of them, Sweet William, is even more bereft than Annie, and not by choice. The 1960s may have jump-started a cultural revolution, but for many people the old prejudices are slow to let go. Still, perhaps "all you really need is love ..."