Bad Tickets
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- $5.99
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
She's left her good Catholic girl ways behind . . . mostly. It is 1967, the Summer of Love, and Mary Margaret Hallinan has that itchy, squirmy feeling that there must be something more out there for her. Her new best friend, the glamorous Jane, says that boys are the ticket to a spectacular future. Her ex-best friend Elizabeth is sure she's going to hell. "Say yes!" commands Jane, and Mary Margaret has tried to follow her c'mon-it'll-be-fabulous friend into the psychedelic swirl. But can she fit any of her old self to this new life she's trying on?This is it, this is gonna be the summer. Mary Margaret Hallinan, former good Catholic girl, is clutching her ticket.Friendship, faith, family, feminism, and1960s counterculture all contribute to the heartfelt, thoughtful pages of Bad Tickets.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In O'Dell's (the Agnes Parker series) latest, 16-year-old Catholic schoolgirl Mary Margaret has dumped her "boring" and chaste friend, Elizabeth, for the dangerously fun Jane. Together, the new friends set out in search of freedom and a "good ticket"-a life that sidesteps dullness and domesticity. All seems hunky-dory when the girls start hanging out at a commune-like "house full of hippies and drifters," with plenty of hashish brownies ("They taste, I don't know, like she got the flour confused with fertilizer," Mary Margaret thinks), make out sessions and booze to go around. But when things get out of hand and Jane winds up pregnant by an older boy who doesn't love her, Mary Margaret begins to see that this brand of freedom may not be all that it's cracked up to be. The story is set in 1967, but the book's characters can seem strangely inauthentic, as though they've been plucked from the modern world and dropped into the Summer of Love; readers may have a hard time stomaching sometimes stilted patches of period dialogue ("Are you going to light up that joint or are we going to contemplate it in stillness?"). Still, Mary Margaret's awkward, budding relationship with Mitchell feels genuine, as do her tender feelings toward her siblings. And the internal conflict between her traditional upbringing and the insistent pull of '60s culture should provide some food for thought. Ages 12-up.
