Written by Dyan Sheldon
Hilde is a normal 16 year old girl working the summer away at a vegetable stand near a beach in the northern United States. This is written in diary form. Hilde keeps track of her relationship with her family…sometimes they are crazy. She keeps track of her relationship with her friends…Thursday nights are movie nights with Louie making his own movies. Then the big surprise, she has to keep track of her relationship with Connor.
Hilde meets Connor at the mall. He just started working at a coffee kiosk. She flirts with him and he flirts back. They exchange phone numbers and the relationship starts to grow. As the relationship grows, and Hilde is loving the attention, the dates, the fun. Just one problem, Connor wants to control Hilde’s other relationships. He can’t really control her relationship with her family, but he does control her relationship and activities with her friends.
Connor does not like Hilde looking or talking with other guys. He wants her eyes only on him, he wants to know whom she is with and what they are doing. He is controlling everything she does. This all comes to a head when she gets a migraine while trying to keep her eyes only on Connor at a baseball party thrown by the coach. Hilde goes home sick and starts to really look at her relationship with Connor.
Between vegetable fights at the stand, movie nights with the gang, and romantic walks on the beach Hilde finally sees what Connor is doing and by the time school starts in the fall she is more than ready to let Connor go back to his private school and she goes back to her crazy life that she loves.
Review by Kristine Johnson, Teacher, West Lake Junior High
Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5 stars)
Interest Level: 7-12
One or Two Things I Learned About Love
Written by Dyan Sheldon
Candlewick Press
288 pages
Release Date: December 10, 2013
ISBN: 9780763666651 (hardcover)
