REVIEW for Pretend you Love Me

Thank you to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for sending me this book.

TITLE:               Pretend you Love Me

AUTHOR:         Julie Anne Peters

GENRE:            YA

RATING:          4 Stars

In full disclosure mode, I have to say that, to date, I have ADORED everything written by Julie Anne Peters.

Peters tackles the difficult subject of same sex love, a subject matter that, as a young adult myself in the 70's (yep, know you know how old I am), I would never have been able to read up on - considering the fact that these types of books were simply not published at that time. 

I always make a point of mentioning this because in my mind, not only are authors such as Peters writing entertaining and informative novels, they are also helping young adults by showing them that being who you are is important, but more importantly, showing them that they are not alone.  I am a huge fan of any author who can pass this message along to YA today- because, wow! it seems as though it must be tough being young these days.

Anyway, back to the book :)  Pretend you Love Me introduces us to Mike, who has been struggling with the dead of her father and an absent mother who is dealing with major issues of her own.  In short, Mike's life is a mess right now and she is desperately trying to keep it all together in her head - which, in itself is playing with her mind.

Enter Xanadu who seems to gravitate to Mike - without judgement as they somehow "click". However, for Mike its more than just friendship and as the storyline develops, you get to discover just how truly confused and screwed up BOTH Mike and Xanadu really are - proving that two "broken" people can naturally find each other.

The novel is a nice mixture of day to day stuff in a small town, while also focusing on the relationship between the two main characters, allowing for some great dialogue and some wonderful insight into each of their thoughts.

I have to admit that I was not a fan of Xanadu who felt manipulative and, in my opinion, tended to "lead" Mike on at times.  She was definitely sending mixed messages and I wondered if perhaps there wasn't some unexplored feelings there? 

I loved reading this book, as I have every book written by this author.