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    Crush
    Crush
    Crush
    Ebook70 pages1 hour

    Crush

    By Carrie Mac

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Because of a moment of indiscretion, Hope's parents send her to New York to spend the summer with her hipster sister while they travel to Thailand. Miserable, Hope ends up meeting Nat, and developing a powerful crush. The only problem is that Nat is a girl. Hope is pretty sure she isn't gay. Or is she? Struggling with new feelings, fitting in and a strange city far from home, Hope finds that love—and acceptance—comes in many different forms.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateMar 1, 2006
    ISBN9781554695973
    Crush
    Author

    Carrie Mac

    Carrie Mac's first novel The Beckoners won the Arthur Ellis YA Award, is a CLA Honour book. She is available for school and library presentations, and has been known to hold the interest of a couple hundred teens where others have failed. Maybe it's the tattoos. For more information, visit www.carriemac.com.

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    Reviews for Crush

    3.5/5

    61 ratings8 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I came across this in my Scribd recommendations and I'm glad I gave it a read. Its a cute short story about a girl, Hope, who gets sent to NY for the summer cause her parents are going to Thailand. She meets a girl and falls into a serious crush for her. Honestly, I wish it was longer and more detailed. The characters are well written and you definitely want to know more. Do Hope and Joy ever find middle ground? Will Hope leave NY? Is Nat a player or loyal? Plus a bunch of other questions. I liked it enough and really really really wish it was a full length book.
    • 5/5
      wish it was longer
    • 5/5
      Read this in about an hour when I couldn't sleep. It's short and an easy comfort story. I never got bored and thoroughly enjoyed the characters here. It's a great story for a YA coming out.
    • 4/5
      This is a "high low" book, a high interest book that is easy to read. It is novella length, so a pretty fast read.

      For me, this was pretty short. I borrowed it on a recommendation from the Paly library blog, but it only lasted 45 minutes of my hour and a quarter urgent care wait. Then we were in the exam room for another hour. Dang.

      Hope goes to Brooklyn, meets a girl and kisses her. She has fallen into a job as a nanny for well-off lesbians with twins and her parents are quirky but open-minded hippies, so the major drama is her own shock at wanting to kiss a girl. It pretty much stops after a kiss and a trip to Coney Island, and her parents approving of her girlfriend, even though she's headed back to the west coast at the end of the summer. I would like to know if Nat is taller than Hope (which matters when you kiss).

      I guess I'm happy that teen lesbian romance books exist at all reading levels. I think I'm happier that there is still a reason to for kids to read Annie on my Mind.
    • 2/5
      A short, simple, everything-is-a-little-too-perfect-and-thus-a-little-eye-roll-inducing coming out/romance tale. The biggest problem is that somehow this book went through a writing/editing/copy-editing/proofreading/publishing process and no one caught the math that doesn't add up. The main character is 17. She has an older sister who has 10 years on her: 17 + 10 = 27. The parents are celebrating 30 years together. The parents met at age 17 and had their first child (the older sister) while still 17. So, the older sister should have been 30. Or 29. Not 27. Everything after that was all very sweet, very perfect, not really 100% believable, but probably a really important story for a gay or questioning teenager in his or her early teens to read. The super duper positivity was cloying, but a nice change from some of the shitty things families say and do to kids who come out as gay.
    • 2/5
      I have been surveying YA lesbian literature lately and would like to rate this highly as a young adult lesbian novel but I didn't think it had much substance. It was not very believable (girl just happens to meet future employer who offers her place to stay and happens to be lesbian, then the first girl she meets turns out to be a lesbian and likes her) at all. I liked that she grew up in a commune and describes it positively but it was just too fluffy of a story for me to relate to.
    • 2/5
      Crush is a pretty good book but it doesn't really keep your attention through out the book, it gets boring after a while but it is interesting.If you're into not so much drama, and like to read about a person's life then this is right for you.I didn't like it that much because I like more drama and a lot of stuff going on.
    • 4/5
      This was lovely, from the initial scene at the airport to the conclusion - for such a short piece, I was surprised how well Hope's character was developed. I think this would be an excellent coming-out novel to give to a reluctant teen reader, if they fancy girls or boys - it reads well as a romance, it isn't an after-schooly issue story. Maybe not one for boys, I think, though.While there is some mention of sex and drug use, nothing is graphic.

    Book preview

    Crush - Carrie Mac

    Brooklyn

    Chapter One

    I have two suitcases, one backpack and a barking West Highland terrier in one of those dog-carrying bags movie stars made cool. Daisy started barking when she got into the car, and she hasn’t stopped since. What if she barks all the way to New York? That will make me popular on the flight.

    Have you got everything? Mom rifles through her backpack. I thought I had gum in here for you.

    I have gum, Mom.

    Chew this on the way up and down. She hands me a pack of sugar-free bubble gum. It’ll help with your ears.

    I know, Mom. Thanks. Their luggage is stacked in a teetering pile and looks like it’s about to collapse. How much time do you have?

    An hour or so before check-in. She checks and rechecks their passports. Daisy barks and barks.

    They’re going to Thailand to build a school. I’m going to New York to stay with my sister for the summer. Of course, I wish I was going to Thailand, but it’s my parents’ thirtieth non-wedding (they’re common-law) anniversary and that’s what they chose to do for it. I was not invited. When they announced their plans, I just assumed I’d be going along with them, and they just assumed that I wouldn’t be. For three months I thought I was going to spend the summer in Thailand, only to find out a month ago that I was going to spend the summer in Brooklyn, with my spacey older sister and her failed-actor boyfriend. What fun.

    How are you feeling, sweetheart? Dad puts an arm across my shoulder. He’s the one who finally realized the misunderstanding and filled me in. I wasn’t impressed, to say the least. Doing okay, kiddo?

    And Daisy barks and barks and barks.

    I’m fine, Dad.

    I know you’re upset about this. He squats to peer at Daisy in her little carrying case. Blessed creature, be quiet! He stands again. Daisy barks and barks and barks. But I also know that you understand how important it is for your mother and me to share this experience together, as a couple.

    My dad, professional therapist.

    I know, Dad.

    Some things in life are best experienced solely with your life partner, to strengthen intimacy and create shared memories upon which to build a deeper love, he says.

    I roll my eyes. What else do you do when you’re seventeen and your father says something like that?

    Yeah, Dad. Got it.

    I know you do, sweetheart. He kisses my forehead. You are my brilliant star.

    Mom is back from the very expensive airport store with more goodies for my flight.

    Tissues, trashy magazines, mini sewing kit—you never know—crossword puzzle book, hard candies. I couldn’t find any sugar- free. Be sure to brush extra hard.

    I stuff them into my backpack, which is already bursting with all of the goodies she’d packed for me at home.

    And an umbrella. She hands me a super- compact little thing, hot pink. We forgot to pack one.

    Joy will have umbrellas, I say.

    Your sister... Dad says.

    Your sister... Mom says.

    And that Bruce... Dad says.

    Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Mom shakes her head.

    Okay, okay. I’ll try to fit it in. I jam it into my pack. Anything to get them off the subject of the not-so-happy couple.

    Sorry about the color, Mom says.

    Doesn’t matter. I’ll never open that umbrella over my head, but I love my mother enough to not say so. Thanks.

    Dad checks his watch. It’s his first watch, ever. He bought it especially for their trip, and it has a GPS and all kinds of high-tech gadgets on it. Now, I love him to neurons, but my Mr. Tie-Dye T-Shirt, Hemp Shorts and Sandals dad is the last human on earth who should be allowed near anything high-tech or remotely electronic.

    They’re taking a satellite phone too, and a laptop, and I can only hope that my mother will not let him near any of it. Every once in a while, he decides he’s going to become a technical genius—like now, for example.

    Apparently he’s forgotten about his latest spectacle, which involved $14,000 worth of solar panels dominoing off the roof and smashing to bits on the patio below. Of course, everyone was mad at him; it took forever to save up the money for the panels. But instead of bad vibes from everybody, he got sympathy because he slipped off the roof along with the solar panels and busted his leg in three places.

    My mother unravels her orange sarong practically down to her underwear (thank the Universe, she’s actually wearing some for once) and rearranges it. She’s paired the sarong with a bright blue tank top that advertises her belly rolls like they’re the aisle four special. Her skin is dark and leathery from years of sunshine working in the market garden, and she’s wearing her usual assortment of wacky bangles and necklaces. My parents. I love them. But they look like lost, aging Dead Heads.

    They’re whispering to each other, holding hands, leaning in close, bodies touching. To look at them, you’d think they

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