The Luckiest Girl

Oh gee, oh my. There are just some special times when YA oldies are the best!

I first read this 1950s novel from my favorite childhood author (and one of my all-time favorite authors, period) back in my tweens. Now I've also read the book about three times in different years of my adulthood.

Although I've always adored the story, I didn't discern back in my adolescence just how wise and poignant of a story this is—not only for its portrayal of young romance and the road to maturity but for its reflections on mother-daughter relationships as well.

Back when I reread the novel for the first time as an adult, I found that I'd misremembered Philip as some kind of macho guy. That's likely due to my memory of the image of the teenage boy show more leaning casually against the tree beside a shy-looking Shelley on the book cover of the 1980s Laurel-Leaf reprint.

But Philip is a more interesting character the way Cleary actually wrote him.

Also, Hartley is, well, Hartley—good ol' Hartley, if you know who I'm talking about!—and Shelley's thoughts about life and love at the end of the novel put honest-to-goodness tears in my eyes during one of my adulthood rereads.

Granted, this last time, I didn't cry. But the nostalgia in my shakily smiling heart was as real as ever. What a valuable overall experience to once read of a heroine who's older than you, to read of her again (and again) when you're older than she is, and to see much more in her story!

Now. At some point, folks grouped four of Cleary's novels into a series called First Love. However, I don't consider one of the books, Sister of the Bride, to really fit in the series, since the heroine doesn't experience much in the way of romance in that book. Hence, I can feel just fine rereading that book whenever.

But I always reread the rest of the First Love novels in a particular order, to let my emotions progress accordingly:

1) The Luckiest Girl
2) Jean and Johnny
3) Fifteen

You see, the ending of The Luckiest Girl is a bittersweet one. Emphasis on the "sweet," but still. And the ending of Fifteen is the lightest, like the carefree and utterly happiest of sighs.

Ahhhh.

So, yeah. If you've never read the First Love novels before, I'd recommend starting with Lucky Shelley's "all the feels" story, here. show less

The Luckiest Girl by Beverly Cleary (yes, of Ramona-fame), is the absolutely adorable tale of sixteen-year-old Shelley, a young Oregonian who spends a year in California with friends of her family. Normally, I would approach any "adorable" YA novel with hesitation--sixteen-year-olds are so rarely cute. But Shelley is an incredibly endearing character--sweet, but not saccharine; inquisitive, but not naive. This makes her journey in California, and her trials in early dating, surprisingly readable.Written in 1958, this is certainly a quaint book, written in a time when contractions, or more than a chaste kiss at the novel's conclusion, were apparently taboo. But Cleary paints a very vivid landscape, and populates it with equally vivid show more people. A few sections featuring Katie, the daughter of Shelley's host parents, feel a bit like the slapstick of the Ramona books; while I love those, wearing vegetables on one's head is more believable in an eight-year-old than a thirteen-year-old. Otherwise, the supporting cast feels startlingly real. There are a surprising number of layers to Shelley's story, despite its apparent simplicity--Cleary tackles school, ambition, homesickness, mother-daughter relationships, and most of all boys, with confidence. All in all, The Luckiest Girl is an utterly charming read. show less

Another throw back to the 1950's but this book has a totally different voice. It's still dated, certainly, but it doesn't feel as screamingly obvious. Shelly comes closer to passing as a typical teen of today.

This is one of the rare books I read as adolescent that stayed with me over the years, although I'd long forgotten the title and the author. Flashes of scenes would pop into my head at random moments here and there and I started to think I'd need to hunt down the book to re-read it. Then I was cleaning up some book records and there is was.

Shelly is an only child with a helicopter mom and a typically 50's dad in Oregon. In a fit of pique after an argument over a rain slicker one morning, she shoves her mother's roses down the show more garbage disposal. Coincidentally, that same morning her mother received a letter from her old college roommate, inviting Shelly to come live with her and her family for the school year in California. Desperate over the idea that her life is never going to change she begs her mom to allow her to go.

Decades later I still really like this book. Shelly's wonder and openness about a new place, a new style of living, meeting new people - all of it was inspiring. I feel like lately I'm surrounded by people who are only interested in judging and questioning my differences (expat) instead of enjoying (or hell, I'd just take respecting) them, so I think Shelly's attitude particularly stood out and struck a chord for me.

I also got a big kick out of reading the scenes that involved Shelly with her host family, Mavis and Tom. Tom is especially enlightened even by today's standards. It's Tom that rounds up the family to do the washing, then the ironing. Tom that makes his daughter practice the piano, Tom that tells his kids when it's time for bed. He also coaches the high school basketball team and runs an orange grove. The man has got it going on.

The Luckiest Girl isn't strong on plot, but like Fifteen the author makes her main character be honest with herself and own her mistakes and her bad choices, even if sometimes it's only internal. If the book had no other moral lesson, there's something to be said for honest self-reflection.

This one is a keeper. show less

This is one of my favorite Beverly Cleary books, and definitely my favorite or her four "teen romance" books (as opposed to her children's books about Ramona and Henry Huggins, etc., although I love those too).

In this book, Shelly is surprised by a sudden invitation to leave home and spend her junior year living with a family in a small town in Southern California -- and even more surprised when she realizes she wants to go! This will be the perfect opportunity to spend some time away from her loving but perhaps-too-involved mother, and her boyfriend whom she's dating out of habit more than anything else.

Everything in California is strange: living with two younger "siblings" for the first time in her only-child life; the rambling former show more boarding house, shabby and comfortable; the more casual school atmosphere....

Considering when this book was written, it was a bit progressive -- not many 16-year-old girls left home for a year back in the 1950s. This book is sweet, touching, funny, and warm. I also like that, more so than in Cleary's other three teen romances, Shelly realizes that having a boyfriend for the sake of having one isn't necessarily good -- instead, she eventually learns that sharing interests can be what makes a relationship special. show less

Reading on openlibrary for an 'everything Cleary' discussion.

I just started, but I can already say that I do not like Shelley's mother at all. Spoiling the memory of the dance by saying 'I wish you could find a good-looking boy to do things with.' And of course the slicker, etc. But I'm pretty sure the theme is going to be about our girl finding her own identity. On the third hand, she does seem bound up by the idea of needing a boyfriend and friends... girls w/out are seen as pitiful. It'll be interesting to see how it turns out.

I'm pretty sure that I haven't ever read this one before... I would have remembered roses in the disposal. At that moment our girl reminded me very much of Ramona Q.

I do like the description of the California show more family's home and customs interesting. Cleary writes engagingly of what it's like to travel, to learn to be less parochial.
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Ok done. One of the best books of all by Cleary, I think. Because we got inside a girl's head as she experienced her bildungsroman, but it wasn't all agony & angst. And gosh but it would have helped me to read this when I was a teen and thinking about boys and about growing up myself. The exploration of the experience of seeing another way of life was just so interesting, and so supportive of the themes, that it made the whole book special.

The only flaw might be that we didn't really get into other's heads until near the end. Which makes it an authentic experience, because the immature Shelley was self-centered. So, I hope teens reread this, to get the full effect.

If your daughter is already confident of her own identity, it would do her no harm to read this anyway, to see the perspective of someone who does pin too much importance to dating. show less

I take back all the snarky things I said about this book, I clearly (Cleary?) had it confused with some other malt shop romance. I found this to be a solid portrayal of adolescence. Shelley is perhaps a little more self-aware than the average teen-aged girl, but that's the only quibble I could find with this delightful story. Recommended! And thanks for the push, Wendy.

I think my Vintage Book Circle and I agree that this was a lovely book. We did feel that the Shelly felt very adult in her perceptions. I remember reading this in junior high and very much taking it to heart. I pondered things much as Shelley did. I think I was the outlier though. We wonder how modern young people would enjoy it. I feel like now it is historical fiction. There were many things that I had kind of forgotten about, that youngsters these days would be puzzled by. It was nice to revisit it.