Jersey Angel

Starred review from March 19, 2012
Bauman (Rosie and Skate) returns to the Jersey shore for her second YA novel, an acutely intimate portrait of a girl’s efforts to better understand herself and her relationships. The summer before her senior year, Angel Cassonetti is enjoying her freedom. Her family owns three houses on the shore, two of which they rent out to the tourist “bennies” who swarm the area every summer. Angel spends her days hanging out with friends and her half-siblings and working at her father’s marina gas station. Nights, she bikes over to her ex Joey’s window, trying to get back with him after she’s rebuffed him one too many times. While her best friend Inggy goes on college tours, Angel, whose sexual self-confidence contrasts with her insecurity about her future, has a steamy fling with Inggy’s boyfriend, Cork. “It won’t count,” she tells him after they have sex for the first time, during a boating trip. “I want it to count,” he replies. One can almost smell salt and sunscreen in the air in this soulful and insightful coming-of-age story. Ages 14–up. Agent: Tina Bennett, Janklow & Nesbit.

April 15, 2012
Six months in the life of a proudly sex-positive 17-year-old from the Jersey Shore (but definitely not Jersey Shore). Angel Cassonetti's life is based on two things: her exquisite awareness of and facility at wielding her sex appeal, and her close, almost sisterly friendship with Inggy Olofsson. Pale and blond, studious and monogamous with her longtime boyfriend Cork, Inggy stands in sharp contrast to the easily tanned, curly brunette, scholastically blase and sexually precocious Angel. When Angel's longtime on-again, off-again boyfriend Joey tells her he's done playing games--"I don't want to sleep around. I want to sleep with my girlfriend"--she finds herself drifting through the summer before senior year. She begins a potentially explosive secret fling that she can't quite find a way out of, though she tells herself "I can stop it anytime. And I will. It's not cool. It just isn't." School begins anew, and Angel is forced to confront her future. How long will this secret relationship continue? What comes after graduation, if her carefree approach to school has made college a no-go for now? Aided by a strong evocation of the tourist-driven rhythms of life on the Central Jersey Shore and a satisfyingly complicated, modern protagonist, this quick read will please readers looking for both nuance and heat in their beach books. (Fiction. 14 & up)

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June 1, 2012

Gr 9 Up-Angel Cassonetti exists in the moment. Given a lot of freedom by her mother, the 17-year-old lives by herself in one of her family's Jersey Shore rental properties during the off-season, but she drinks and hooks up even when she's living with her family during the summer. She's never really paid attention in school or worried much about the future, unlike her friend Inggy, who's college-bound. But the summer before her senior year, when Inggy leaves for college visits and Angel's longtime, on-again-off-again boyfriend, Joey, says it's off for good, she finds herself wondering what comes next-and getting much too close to Inggy's boyfriend, Cork. While seemingly aimed at fans of raunchy reality television, this novel is Jersey Shore with heart. Bauman sometimes trips with awkward, scattered dialogue, and most of her secondary characters are stereotypes (the flighty mother, the perfect best friend, the sensitive ex-boyfriend), but Angel herself grows from flat to nuanced. Readers looking for a role model won't find it in her, but as she sees the effects of her freewheeling lifestyle (she's embarrassed by her failed attempt to take the SATs, hurt by classmates imagining her in a dead-end job after high school, and horrified after she discovers her mother kissing Cork), she promises herself that, "when I'm Mom's age, I'm going to know when to stop being a girl," and then realizes that her maturation must start now. Through it all, Angel remains her own person, independent, unashamed of enjoying sex, and determined to find her own way.-Gretchen Kolderup, New Canaan Library, CT

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2012
Grades 10-1 Angel's ex-boyfriend is ignoring her attempts to get back together, and her best friend, Inggy, is always working on college applications. Angel simply wants to enjoy her senior year without worrying about the future, but as her search for fun leads to Inggy's boyfriend and other clandestine interests, Angel's carefree attitude begins to falter. Bauman, author of Beautiful Girls (2003) and Rosie and Skate (2009), writes insightfully about a hurting teen girl who hides her pain in the affection of men and the fleeting pleasure of attention. Although the book portrays Angel as a sexy, fun-loving girl, Bauman exhumes the emotional consequences of Angel's lifestyle and finally delivers her to the happiness she desires. There are a few explicit sex scenes which serve to enhance the depth of Angel's character and decisions. Angel's exploits undeniably make for an interesting summer, but her search for a safe, permanent happiness is what makes her an interesting character.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

July 30, 2012
It’s the summer before her senior year and 17-year-old Angel—who lives on a New Jersey resort island—finds herself contemplating life, comparing herself to her overachieving and beautiful best friend, trying to win back her ex-boyfriend, hooking up with other boys, and learning to keep secrets. In this audio edition, Jaclyn Gaines forgoes a strong New Jersey accent—except in the dialogue of a minor character or two—and turns in fun, engaging performance. She lends Angel a youthful voice that’s perfect for the teenage girl. At times, Gaines could do more to distinguish between the book’s other characters—some of the voices she creates are indistinguishable during dialogue. Still, Gaines’s narration has momentum, and listeners will surely stick around until the end, wondering what the future holds for Angel. Ages 14–up. A Wendy Lamb hardcover.

July 1, 2012
A rare but welcome type of YA protagonist, Angel has a healthy libido and no shame about following where it leads. Still, she knows the damage that her fling with her best friend's boyfriend could inflict. This steamy beach book goes a level deeper in its presentation of teens finishing high school and facing choices, some more difficult than others.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2012
"I like Cork in the dark, the feel of his heat and his mouth hot and wet on mine. I'm not exactly me, and he's not exactly him. But here we are." Angel, a confident, sexually experienced teen who lives on the New Jersey shore, is a rare but welcome type of protagonist in young adult literature: a girl with a healthy libido and no shame about following where it leads. Still, she knows the damage that her secret summer fling with Cork, her best friend Inggy's boyfriend, could potentially inflict. Angel rationalizes the situation by telling herself she's basically a good person -- which is true -- and good people should be allowed to "fall" every once and a while. "Plus I don't love Cork. He loves Inggy and she loves him. They're meat and potatoes. I'm just a dessert. I won't let it go on too long." Bauman's novel will easily entertain readers as a steamy beach book, with Angel exploring all the freedom and pleasure summer offers. It also goes a level deeper in its presentation of teen characters entering their senior year of high school and finding themselves faced with choices, some more difficult than others. One (atypically harrowing) scene puts Angel at the hospital with a friend who has just delivered a stillborn baby girl, helping the young woman decide whether to view her daughter's body. Here and elsewhere in the story Angel isn't sure whether she says or does the right thing. But she tries her best, which is all anyone can do. christine m. heppermann

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)