Permission Slips

A mosaic of teen chaos, confusion and sexual anarchy is the backdrop for suburban ninth-grader Alison Gepner's search for meaning and first love. A "good girl" who would rather be seen as an edgy individualist, Alison is surrounded by the soldiers of a cruel and crushing teen culture. She faces the fight of her life, just to have a life. The wily schemes of a jealous competitor (Claire, the newly slimmed-down group home girl) threaten to take away Alison's new connection with the intensely attractive and mysterious Elijah before she can claim him as her own. The adult world, too, seems to be a lonely mess, full of insecure helpers who cling by their fingertips to the illusion of control.

©2005 The Way It Works Press (P)2016 Jerry Sander

Black comedy...my favorite.

I don’t listen to books – I read them myself. If I’m going to listen to anything on my long walks, it’s going to be music: Ella Fitzgerald, Amy Winehouse, Hank Williams. When I’ve got Ella‘s carmel, Amy’s smoke, and Hanks twang, why would I want to be read to? I’ll tell you why. To enter a world of teen angst and ennui that is so finally rendered it might’ve been drawn with a cat’s whisker. The characters in Permission Slips are insecure, sometimes cruel, and often wincingly funny. You’ll end up rooting for at least one of them and have no idea why. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll also probably end up having a few flashbacks to that giant fiery pile-up that was your youth. (This book should come with the trigger warning.) But don’t worry; as the characters in the story take turns exploding, sputtering, pontificating, and yearning, you can remind yourself that you are safe—all grown up. And isn’t it more than a little delicious to be able to revisit all that ache and rage from a distance?