Jessica Darling is a sophomore, and she is heart-broken. Her best friend Hope has moved away from Pineville, New Jersey, and Jess has to face Pineville High School without her. Jess has enough trouble fitting in—she’s just not interested in the things that most high school girls care about, or at least the ones she hangs out with. She doesn’t care about the makeup or the make-outs, the drinking and the dances. She just keeps her grades up and her head down for track.
In the absence of her best friend, Jessica falls back in with the kids she hung out with before Hope, even though they’re boy-crazy cheerleaders and Scotty, the jock who’s been carrying a torch for Jess. She is also writing in her journal, since she can’t sleep and she made a pact with Hope that they would only write one snail mail letter a month, and only as long as they want to (the phone calls and emails are more frequent).
While having one of those days where Jess can’t remember her locker combination, she runs into Marcus Flutie in the school office. He isn’t someone Jess considered a friend, especially since he did drugs with Hope’s brother Heath before he overdosed. And then, a few weeks later, when he comes to her asking a favor that could get her into serious trouble, she refuses at first. Why should she put herself on the line like that? But when he points out that she’s taking the safe way out, her frustrations at everyone in her life thinking that they know just what she’ll do all the time, that she takes the risk. And while she doesn’t get caught, Marcus does and get shipped off to another school.
And while Jess knows that she took a big risk and got away with it, no one else knows. But they change in other ways. Her friends get caught up with a girl who transferred in from New York City, and even Scotty gets a date to the prom and sets aside his feelings for Jess to try to make it work with his new girlfriend. Jess feels even more alone as sophomore year ends.
Summer brings a job on the boardwalk and the wedding of her older sister. Jess flirts with the best man’s younger brother and earns money for a visit to see Hope at the end of summer. But even that doesn’t end the way Jess wants.
The first semester of junior year brings some new surprises, like Marcus back to school in a tie and some news about last semester’s NY transfer student. And it brings back some old friends, like Jess’s insomnia. But as the weeks go by, Jess finds more of her voice and discovers friendships she can be herself in. She never does become that high school girl who is all about the boys and shopping, but she does grow in confidence in the young woman she is and the direction she’s heading.
Megan McCafferty’s Sloppy Firsts is a novel about a difficult year in one girl’s high school experience. While the teenage life adds to the setting of this story, the part of this book that adds the real sparkle is the voice, the intelligence, the humor, and the attitude of one Jessica Darling. Although much of this first-person tale is about Jess’s grief at losing a friend and frustration at feeling like a stranger in a strange land, her strength remains and moves her forward through it all.
Personally I loved Jess Darling. When I was a teenager, I didn’t want to read about the cheerleaders and the girls at the mall. I wanted to read about the snarky girls, the ones who made their own rules for what mattered, the ones who subverted the norms. I wanted them to roll their eyes at the makeup and the boys. I wanted them to be smart and individual and to follow their own hearts. And that is Jess.
Sloppy Firsts, as well as several other Jessica Darling novels, were first published about 20 years ago. But because of the times and the mature nature of the books, they were published by an imprint for adult novels. Wednesday Books, an imprint for teens, is bringing them back. There are a few edits to bring them up to current standards of inclusion, but for the most part these are as originally written. And they are set in the early aughts, post Y2K, post boy bands, and definitely post Barry Manilow. But the pop culture references bring you back to those years and add depth and richness to the experience.
Sloppy Firsts is a return to high school with high snark, powerful emotions, and mature themes to make you have to think. It’s a lovely story, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll want Jess Darling as one of your new best friends.
Egalleys for Sloppy Firsts were provided by Wednesday Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
