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Title: Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the 1970s
ISBN: 1596912006
Author:
Margaret Sartor
Publicate Date: 2006-06-27
Publish: 2006-06-27
List Price: $19.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Hardcover
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $1.33
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $0.20
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.26
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Karrun
I'm only giving it a two because I actually finished it. This book is not literary genius. It is just a diary and that's all. The topic was exciting to me - reason I ordered the book - and I was so totally dissapointed by the writing style. A better idea for the author would have been to use the diary to create a novel. It was simplistic, but as I said I did finish it and know it could have been a better novel if written as such.
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2: Drove My Horse\Bicycle to the Levee
What did those song lyrics mean anyway? I didn't find the answer in this book.
Although Margaret went through her adolesence in the 70's and I experienced mine in the 50's, we had some common themes. Every teenage girl sometimes feels others have answers to which we ouselves don't have access.
It was interesting to read of Margaret's search for spirituality and her daily thoughts of how well she was living according to her beliefs.
Margaret longed for a nickname but did not want to be called Peggy. Later when a special boy called her Maggie, she thought that was a good fit. As the book progressed, Maggie became more interested in boys, but she could not make a commitment to any one boy.
I was surprised that Maggie's parents gave her so much freedom and did not punish her for smoking and drinking. I was also surprised that Maggie thought of herself as unpopular although she had dates with a number of boys and was elected homecoming queen.
It was easy for the reader to question Margaret's friend Tommy's sexuality, but Margaret had not even thought that Tommy might be gay until his mother mentioned it to her. The mother's remarks upset Margaret, but she continued to love Tommy dearly even into adulthood.
This book was laugh-out-loud funny in many places. The incident I remember as the funniest was when Maggie popped into Tommy's kitchen following her jogging one day, ran upstairs to use his bathroom, took a swig of water from a glass in the bathroom while she was there - and got a bonus with her mouthful of water.
Because this book was compiled from the author's actual teenage diaries, we are treated to the actual daily thoughts of a teenager in the 70's - rather than the way the author remembers her teen years from the perspective of an adult.
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3: It Surely Took Courage To Share This
First off, our decade's obsession with blogging has little in common with the art of keeping a diary, and anyone who doubts that might do well to read this book. A diary is normally a private thing, an exercise in personal meditation, a record of a life and those who pass through it, written by one's self, for one's self, and it's not often someone openly invites complete strangers to see something that is by nature so personal, and yet writer Margaret Sartor has bravely done just that, and done it in a way we all can feel guilt free over even as we read what were once some of her innermost thoughts and experiences as she grew up seeking God, love, and self-understanding in the emerging "New South" of the 1970's.
Whereas often because they ARE so personal diaries can be boring and leave a reader feeling simultaneously included and excluded, Margaret Sartor's writings from age twelve in 1972 thru age eighteen in the summer of 1977 are not only welcoming but annotated to the point where we grasp who everyone she interacts with is and feel some enlightenment as to each person's motivations. There is her family, consisting of her father, who along with his brothers is one of the town of Montgomery, Louisiana's most well-known doctors; her mother, a beautiful and complex woman; her two older sisters, younger brother, and late in the diary, a new baby sister, who comes along when her parents are well into middle-age. Margaret Sartor is frank about many things, her feelings for boys among them, but no other subject preoccupies her quite so much as her quest for a relationship with God. Even in the Bible Belt of the deep south of two generations ago I doubt many people Margaret's age were so keenly motivated to seek out God or to do more to grasp something tangible about the nature of this force. Margaret's spirituality takes several forms but most often finds expression in the charismatic brand of the local faith. She tells of prayer meetings and youth revivals, about the casting out of demons and miracles performed that grew attendees legs out to equal length. She seems to be a soul simultaneously in awe of all this and puzzled as to why if she is truly in the Almighty's presence, she feels a lack of perfect contentment.
As Margaret ages, religion is gradually pushed aside and instead we read of her infatuations with one young man or another, her confusions, her worries and very often her dreams, which she records almost nightly and which are almost always interesting in themselves. Margaret gains national recognition for her work with her school's cheerleading squad, and seeks early admission to a college out of state, proving to herself and others that she has the power to achieve her goals. As Margaret's story unwinds installment by installment, the tales of those peripheral to her become almost as interesting as her own life. There is her best friend, who comes out of the closet in small town Louisiana in the `70's; there is the racial integration struggle going on, at times violently, in the background; there is an aunt who kills herself, and another relative who was lobotomized and as a consequence became an obese misfit; and there is the restless shiver felt by all as a region little changed over generations moves toward a modern age much different from the past.
Margaret Sartor's entries are often brief. They are simply quick, easily-read bits of information that say much in a short space. In its entirety her diary is unique, candid, and always fascinating. Maybe it will inspire others to publish similar records of their lives. Till then, Miss American Pie remains a darn good read.
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4: For real?????
I suppose in this "reality" obsessed culture we now live in anybody can get their diary published and have it lauded as an important piece of modern literature or a work of brilliance or any of the myriad cliched accolades critics vomit up.
Well I don't get it. Miss American Pie is a dull, dull, dull read. The forward is promising and I thought Sartor's teenage musings would be profound or intriguing or at the least interesting but it's not. Sartor is a spoiled rich kid whose father is a doctor and mother is an artist. She has several horses, equally well off friends and an obviously successful future ahead of her.
Her diary entries, if you can call them that, average two to three sentences at the most. Entries range from "May 20: I feel really bad," to "February 6: BAD headache today," to "April 1: Stella is unhappy at her job". She mopes around because she thinks she's ugly or because her best friend likes a guy she likes or because her hair is frizzy. There isn't anything of substance to make this a worthwhile read or shed some new light on adolescence. I understand it's a diary of a teenage girl but it's still boring.
If a diary is to be published, it should be dynamic, intriguing, shedding new light on the protagonist or a particular situation or a period of time. Miss American Pie fails on all counts. It doesn't help that no one has a clue who Margaret Sartor is either.
Miss American Pie could have been more effective if it was written as an actual memoir instead of the dull, dull, ramblings of a teenage girl's diary.
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5: Courtesy of Teens Read Too
This was a good book. It is an actual journal of the author written in the seventies. I graduated from high school and college in the seventies so I could relate to many of the references made in the journal. I think today's girls could also relate, though, because the themes in the journals are the same struggles that today's teens go through.
It starts when Margaret is in the seventh grade and goes through her senior year. At first the entries are brief and some are quite funny. Later they get more poignant.
Margaret is boy crazy, bored, rebellious, and is trying to figure out what she believes. In the seventies, we had many issues involving desegregation, drugs, sex -- it was the era of the sexual revolution, feminism, and the big mega-churches were founded and grew in that decade. I laughed at many of the entries, especially when she would write of some profound event and not elaborate and the next entry would be something very trivial.
For example: November 8 -- Nixon was elected president. November 9 -- Everyone says me and Vernon would make a good couple. (Nixon being elected president was exciting and had worldwide ramifications but her and Vernon being a good couple didn't last more than a week.) Another example: August 8 -- President Nixon resigned; made appointment to get my hair cut.
I love that entry. It is such a teen statement. MISS AMERICAN PIE is realistic and fun to read. Plus, it makes you want to start a journal, too.
Reviewed by: Marta Morrison
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