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l8r, g8r is a coming of age novel by Lauren Myracle which was published on March 1, 2007 by Harry N. Abrams.. This book is revolutionary in it's use of shorthand language. As a clear aesthetic indication of modern society, the book is a collection of text messages and instant messages made among the three main characters Angela, Zoe and Maddie. The book develops the senior year of as these three girls try overcome the trials presented before them. The book engages various topics such as religion, bullying, sexuality and identity. Rightfully notorious as a controversial novel, l8r g8r invites the reader into the mind of a young adult.

l8r g8r was the No. 1 banned book in 2009 (it later became No. 9 in 2010) due to the prevalent sexual content, use of profanity and the use of shorthand language. The fact that the book depicts sexual content among adults also contributed to it's banning. Despite the notoriety, there have been 1.5 million copies sold and it is widely popular among children, particularly young women who feel that they can relate to the characters .

The characterization of Angela, Zoe, and Maddie enable the readers with the benefit of having widely contrasting views of every situation presented in the novel. Angela, being the emotional sweetheart often providing the impetuous and naive view of the topic addressed. Zoe, being the academic, presents the logical and occasionally moral perspective of the topic. Maddie, being the realist and the most mature of out of the three, presents the objective perspective of the topic. Thus, the author constantly creates three different angles for the reader to view the topics of the book which gives the reader better opportunity to either agree, disagree of formulate their own opinion each situation.

Plot

Angela, Maddie and Zoe are IM-ing to each other prior to their senior year of high school. Angela is excited just to be reunited with her friends for their final year of high school. Maddie is dreading the impending separation that will occur after the year is over. Zoe is estatic about seeing Doug after he has traveled the world. Zoe later has an encounter with from a girl in her class where she shared an embarrasing secret about Jana, a viciously mean but popular school girl and an enemy of Maddie, Zoe and Angela. She find outs that Jana has teddy bear name "Boo Boo bear" which is so very dear to her that she keeps it in her car rather than leaving it at home. Moments later Jana comes and finds out that Zoe knows about Boo boo bear and becomes furious. Zoe recounts the whole scene with Maddie who anticipates Jana to retaliate by attacking Zoe in some way. Zoe is overwhelmed with passion for Doug that she decides to start taking birth control pill so she can have sex with him. Angela gets wary of her friendship with Zoe after a classmate said that Zoe thought she was flirting with Doug. She confronts Zoe about the comment just to find out that Zoe didn't say that. However, Zoe expresses her curiosity about the subject when she asks if Angela did have feelings for him considering that Angela has liked him in the past. Angela indignantly denied it. Consequently, Angela becomes a bit skeptical about her friendship with Zoe and her skeptism lingers througout the novel, especially since Zoe kept acknowledging the rumors about her. Nevertheless, Zoe and Angela attempt to put the matter behind them when Angela accompanies Zoe to a Planned Parenthood clinic .

Zoe begins to show greater emotionally dependency on Doug, especially after her Valentines Day double date with Angela and her boyfriend Logan. She states "sometimes I think, what would i do w/o him?". Angela concerned that Zoe is becoming too dependent and confides in Maddie about the concern. Zoe also notably spends more time with Doug than she does with Maddie and Angela which distances her from them and feed into her emotional dependency. As Zoe becomes more codependent on Doug, Angela becomes more aware of her lack of attraction to her boyfriend Logan. During an "all out makout session" that occurred on the double date of Zoe and Doug and Angela and Logan. Angela reluctanly participates in the makeout session with Logan in order to avoid any suspicion from Zoe. Angela later admits that she doesn't really like Logan as a boyfriend to Maddie. She initially intends to break up with Logan but reconsiders after he surprises her with a Valentine's Day gift of a jeep. Angela still tries to love Logan despite the fact that she admitted that she only likes him as a friend due to the fact that she received a car which she desired. Regardless of the fact, Angela realized that she couldn't continue to date Logan and later breaks up with him.

Zoe talks to Maddie about a off putting comment Jana made about her boyfriend and Maddie surmised that Jana started the rumors. Maddie, who is determined to restore Zoe's honor, embarrasses Jana by making an announcement essentially calling her a liar to the whole school Jana retalitates by putting Maddie's picture of her topless on Craigslist for sexual encounters from anyone's who interested. Zoe and Angela are determined to help Maddie and retaliate with legal charges against Jana but Maddie refuses in order to not appear cowardly before Jana. Maddie reproaches Zoe for having her mother fight her battles for her and she gets very offended. Regardless of Maddie's request to leave the matter alone, Angela retaliates by breaking into Jana's house and leaving a note suggesting that Jana's room has been searched. Her retaliation is not well received by Maddie who only wanted to put the whole situation behind her. Angela's becomes hurt because her act wasn't appreciated by Maddie.

Zoe becomes aware that she spends too much time with Doug and decides to spend time with Maddie and Angela at Angela's house. The three have a great time together, Maddie and Zoe bond over the comical show "Big Bunny" where a three small children encounter a large pink bunny in a forest and they have comical conversations. Consequently the friendship experience a period of healing and the girls were happier.

The period of the healing was disrupted when Angela find out that Logan was cheating on her with Jana while they were dating. She conseqently spirals into a state of depression which is worstens when Maddie is accepted into in Santa Cruz University in California and Zoe gets accepted in Kenyon instead of staying at a college in Georgia like her. Angela struggles to handle the radical changes that were occuring in her life so she lashes out at Maddie and tried to manipulate Zoe into going to the same school as her when her mom refused her to go to Kenyon. Zoe also experiences turmoil when Doug reproaches her for being to codependent at prom and Angela accuses her for being passive after not retaliating for her when "Jana placed" a dead bird in her jeep. Maddie, having to be a mediator in all the turmoil, displays her maturity by telling Zoe the truth about her passivity and exposing to Angela's unfair treatment to her and Zoe. Angela's statement in her conversation with Maddie after prom epitomizes effect of the tumult; she states, "it makes me lose faith... in all of us.". Zoe decides to stop being passive after conversing with Maddie who truthfully told her that she lost confidence in herself since Doug came back from his travels and she fell into the role of being passive . She decides to kidnap Jana's Boo Boo bear by creating a ploy to get Jana out of her car to steal the bear. Her plan nearly succeeds however she ends up being trap in the back seat of Jana's car and witnesses Jana yelling at her step-mother who is clearly having an affair with a liquor store clerk. Zoe is soon discovered by Jana and explained to her that her retaliation was due to the the fact that she placed a dead bird in Angela car. Soon after, she finds out that Jana didn't actually put the dead bird in Angela's car but a bird flew through Angela's open car window and rammed into her dashboard where it died. . The friendship of the girl's is restored with Zoe's attempt to retaliate. The novel ends with the three friends recounting a school mudslide event, where they celebrated their friendship and youth by wearing pony tails, and the school year as a whole. In their recapitulation, they realized that Jana never truly succeeded in separating the friendship even though they thought she did considering all the turmoil she caused. With satifaction that of their thriving friendship at the end of their senior year, they plan to enjoy the graduation together as the Winsome Threesome.

Background and writing

Lauren Myracle is a young adult writer who is notorious for addressing social taboo subjects such as sex and religion in her books. She believes that kids are already exposed to these subjects and claims that her books are a mechanism in which they can explore these topics. . Additionally, she believes the books enable kids to process these ideas and that such knowledge shouldn't be kept from children because it is more dangerous than not telling them at all..

Style

The novel embodies the more current aspects of society especially in terms of communications. Each page is framed to look like a IM web page with the curser on the screen near the "send" and "cancel" button on the page. Additionally, Maddie, Zoe and Angela have their own aesthetic charateristics that differentiate them from each other. This is representative of their personalities because each girl is different just as each font is different. The novel also embarks on maintaining the modern image by making cultural references such as referring to celebrities such as Reese Witherspoon and Katie Holmes . The updated ebook version of the novel refers to even more current celebrites such as Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber . The use of emoji's serve to coincide with youthful behavior in addtion with the use of shorthand. The colloquialism established through the shorthand and emoji appeals the younger audience and engages them in the reading more than traditional books.

Hot topics in the Novel

Since the target of the novel is young adults, Myracle doesn't shy away from talking about controversial topics that pertain to the youth in her novel. She addresses sex in her book when, Zoe has sex with Doug for the first time in a church basement. She explicitly described the sexual encounter to her Maddie and Angela. All three viewed Zoe's loss of virginity as a rite of passage and Zoe notably refers to herself as a "woman" after she has sex with Doug.. Myracle was realistic in her depiction of sex because she acknowledged the apprehension that a person feel about doing. Her realistic depiction of the topic was evident when Zoe doesn't go through with her first attempt to have sex.

Myracle also embarks on addressing religion through Zoe who she invites two Jehovah witness girls into her home. Zoe is very open to their opinion but Maddie is representative of the skeptic perspective who refuted their opinion. Myracle consequently presented both sides of the spectrum and leave the reader to identify with either of them or prompt them to think critically about the subject and formulate their own unique opinion as Myracle hoped. The author diminishes the taboo that surrounds talking about religion when Zoe calmly answered Angela who asked her about her religion. Even though she expressed the hesitation in talking about it when Zoe begins her reply with "um", Myracle demonstrated the fruitfulness of the conversation when Angela learned that Zoe thanks God for her, Maddie and Doug. Zoe learned that Angela values her beliefs when she previously assumed that Angela thought her beliefs are ridiculous. The author dispels the taboo of speaking about religion in the text and demonstrates that these conversation can be beneficial and enlightening.

The author addresses bullying the novel and exposed the futility of it. Jana, being the bully of the novel, was ultimately found to be like the Winsome Threesome, filled with personal problems. Myracle exposes the feasibility in which it can start considering that the feud between The Winsome Threesome and Jana started with a misunderstanding about a dead bird. Additionally, the author shows the double standard in retaliating with a bully because the Winsome Threesome consequently became a bully when she retaliated at Jana for something she didn't do. She also discourages readers from retaliating by the increasingly agregious paybacks that resulted from the fued between the Winsome threesome and Jana. Simultaneously, she encourage readers to not retaliate as seen with Maddie's realization that it's better to let it go and Maddie's friend Vincent who states to Zoe "u wanna know what the best revenge is? happiness. *that's* the best revenge." . Myracle clearly displays some didacticism for her young adult audience.

Publication and Reception

l8r, g8r was first published in 2007 by Abrams publishing company. She has sold at total of 1.5 million copies . Despite the high sales rates, the parents have not recieved the book well. One source says she is was referred to as "Satan", a "pedophile" and "corrupter of the youth" for the controversial topics that she addresses in her novel. Another source refers to the series as "sexually explicit and offensive". Despite the parental criticism, the book has resonated with the youth who felt that they can identify with the characters. Young girls have received her books well as on girl said that she felt that she had an older sister through the Myracle's books. .

Bibliography