I’m not sure where to start with this YA title, nor where to end. First of all these thoughts from a blogger named Amanda on sex and marriage directly relate to my appreciation or lack thereof for Ms. Ockler’s book, so read what Amanda says first.

Then, I’ll tell you up front that I agree with Amanda. Sex within marriage is a wonderful, blessed thing. Sex outside of marriage is, at the very least, a dangerous and bad idea. With that perspective in mind, it was difficult for me to read about the decisions the girls in the book Twenty Boy Summer make, even though the book portrays accurately a certain mindset and cultural norm that is all too common these days.

To be clear and concise, Anna and her best friend Frankie make a pact to meet at least twenty boys during their summer vacation, “do a little test-drive”, and maybe manage to get rid of the problem of Anna’s virginity in the process. The reasons leading to and surrounding this little challenge are a little complicated, and since those reasons are the best part of the story, I won’t give them away. Suffice it to say that Frankie’s gone wild for a reason, and she’s trying to get Anna to join her. The problem is that these girls have a skewed perspective about sex and love and boys and virginity. Virginity is an albatross that must be consigned to oblivion as quickly as possible. It probably won’t be that pleasant, but it must be done. Then, life, and perhaps good sex, can commence.

One problem I have with the novel is that no one ever expresses an opposing viewpoint. Neither of the girls thinks to look at sex and virginity in a different way. The boys they meet are fairly decent, but definitely place a priority on sex. The girls don’t talk to their parents and in fact, spend the entire summer vacation deceiving Frankie’s parents into thinking they are total innocents. Instead, they’re really sneaking out at night to meet boys on the beach and going to a wild party and visiting San Francisco alone. Not one person over the course of the entire novel tells Anna and Frankie that “having sex permanently alters your relationship with someone: makes you connected to them forever in a really transformative way” and that perhaps virginity is a gift to be guarded and saved until marriage instead of an albatross to be discarded ruthlessly.

In other words, I get it that the way Frankie and Anna think in this book is the way lots of teens in our culture think. I get that they are hurting and longing for any kind of connection, and I don’t want a preachy kind of book where the two girls end up in major trouble because of their bad choices or where they’re lectured by someone older and wiser. But I do wish that somehow an alternate view of sex and commitment could have been presented.

The other half of the book is about friendship and grief recovery, and that part was quite poignant and moving and real. However, the two halves aren’t really halves, and the illicit sex part sort of spoiled the story for me. I’ve been accused of not wanting my (YA) books to have any sex in them at all, but I really don’t think that’s it. I just want the author to be honest. And I don’t think it’s honest or helpful to tell young people that sex is something you’ve got to experience in order to grow up, the sooner the better, and there are no emotional or physical consequences connected with premarital, promiscuous sexual relations.

Not true. Not even in New York or on the beach in California.

Here’s a lovely video at Amazon with the author, Sarah Ockler, telling what she was trying to achieve with Twenty Boy Summer. She talks mostly about the “half” of the book that I liked.