I Need You More Than I Love You and I Love You To Bits
Grade 9 Up—Ardelius follows the frenetic course of an all-consuming teen love affair from first chance sexual encounter to inevitable atrophy as everyday insecurities encroach. Told through short conversational passages, the narrative is comprised largely of dialogue between Morris and Betty and glimpses into the couple's quiet, intimate moments. Such scenes are interspersed with their inner thoughts (mainly his) and snapshots of Morris's mother and father, who are respectively flighty and manic-depressive. It is these parental weaknesses that feed Morris's own fears about the attraction between two people and indirectly spur the downward trajectory of the relationship. Ardelius's prose, translated from Swedish, poetically bottles the universal delirium and unsustainable pace of first love. American readers expecting a typical teen love story, however, will not find it here. Certain aspects of the story, such as the nonchalance of Betty's mom when her daughter's boyfriend walks downstairs in the morning for breakfast, have a distinctly European ring. This sophistication, both in style and content, may alienate some, but will speak volumes to more worldly teenagers.—Jill Heritage Maza, Greenwich High School, CTCopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.