It was a little depressing to read about serious romances and sexual involvement in middle school. My social alienation in high school prevented me from dating, and my close relationships with boys were always friendships. I thus learned to see boys as people, neither gods nor monsters. I also often found the writings on death to be unsatisfying. The writers in this anthology lacked even the barest faculties for coping with death.
Death is supposed to come with old age.
When death breaks into our lives and steals our innocence, its finality leaves us unnaturally older. There are too many elderly young people. I wonder what Shandler would say about American life less than a hundred years ago, when babies and young children died so easily, or today in third world countries where health care and sanitation are still substandard, causing many similar deaths. In such circumstances, young people become far more mature than those with easier lives. Even when kicked in the teeth with death, the contributors seem unwilling to learn from it.