Food, girls and other things I can’t have / Allen Zadoff

Food, girls and other things I can’t have is a thoughtful book about Andrew the second fattest boy in his sophomore year at high school. Andrew begins this book worrying about his weight, his status in school and the girl he has fallen for at the end of summer vacation. Andrew completely embarrasses himself (and injures several classmates) while trying to impress April on the soccer field. Andrew is then mysteriously rescued from the school bully by the school’s top jock. Andrew is recruited onto the football team and leaves his friends and the model UN behind. Andrew then spends a turbulent few weeks trying to hide the fact that he is playing football from his mother and at the same time trying to navigate his quickly rising school status and the mystery of why he has become so popular all of a sudden.

Food, girls and other things I can’t have gives the reader an inside look of what it is like to be fat in high school and many of the social and psychological implications of it. Andrew is continuously tormented by thoughts of weather people are making fun of him or if they are trying to use him in some way and he also has to decide which group of friends he wants to hang out with and who to trust as his after school activities change.

Allen Zadoff (2009) Food, girls and other things I can’t have, New York: Egmont.

The “Go Ask Alice” book of answers: A guide to good physical, sexual, and emotional health / Columbia University’s Health Education Program

The “Go Ask Alice” book of answers is an incredible resource of health information for young adults. The book is produced by Columbia University’s Health Education Program essentially for the students of that institution, but it has achieved a much wider audience, because of the accuracy and honesty of its content. The book evolved from the website that started in 1993 and is still answering questions for young adults on topics such as: masturbation, orgasms, contraception, STD’s, emotional health, fitness, nutrition drugs and alcohol, relationships, men’s, women’s and general health questions. The questions are as frank and explicit as the answers are and readers are left with high quality information, advice and references for further research.

“Go Ask Alice” is, I feel an invaluable resource for older teens and young adults that either have trouble talking to their parents about these personal and sometimes intimate topics. The book and website are also important to those readers that have no other source of information on these topics than friend’s gossip and urban legends. This resource does not shy away from the controversial in that it addresses questions such as can men be pressured to have sex, date rape drugs and questions for the GLB and Q community.

Columbia University’s Health Education Program (1998) The “Go Ask Alice” book of answers: A guide to good physical, sexual, and emotional health, New York: Henry Holt.