num_pages: 224
description: John Galardi is a loner, unable to express his feelings except in the pages of his zine, "Bananafish." He finds inspiration in another zine, "Escape Velocity," created by Marisol Guzman, a self-proclaimed "rich spoiled lesbian private-school gifted-and-talented writer virgin." Her sharp observations make John laugh out loud and he decides he must meet this witty author. By planting himself in Tower Records the day she drops off the latest issue, John manages to arrange a coffee date that extends over several Saturday mornings. They discuss everything from John's inability to feel and his parent's divorce to Marisol's problems with her suffocating adoptive parents. When Marisol casually tells John that she likes him, he is flabbergasted: "Honest to God a shiver ran through my body... Nobody ever said that they liked me. Ever. Not even [my friend] Brian, who probably actually doesn't." After a disastrous "just friends" junior prom date and a weekend zine conference spent together, John realizes that his feelings for Marisol are more than platonic. And Marisol, who is exploring her identity as a young lesbian, has no idea how to let John down gently without losing her new best friend.
language: English
title: Hard Love
titlecomplete: Hard Love
genres: LGBT, Lesbian, Coming Of Age, Teen, Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, Fiction, Queer, Realistic Fiction
ratings_count: 7186
awards: awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Michael L. Printz Award, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Rhode Island Teen Book Award, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Michigan Library Association Thumbs Up! Award
publisher: Simon and Schuster