Stuck in the 70s

Stuck in the 70s
By Debra Garfinkle
(4/5 stars)

I guess you should really be careful around hot tubs.  Party girl Shay falls asleep in hers in 2006 and wakes up in a bathtub in 1978.  She finds herself in the house of nerdy Tyler, his Betty Crocker-type mom, and sister Heather.  The early part of the story then focuses on Shay surviving, obtaining clothes and a plausible excuse to stay at Tyler's house.

Then in "Back to the Future" style, she starts helping Tyler try to be cool, though she doesn't need a radiation suit and Walkman playing Van Halen to do it.  In turn she winds up making over Tyler's sister and mother, which in turn throws everything off balance.  At the same time, Shay and Tyler make halfhearted attempts to send her home.  (Though in the old "Twilight Zone" tradition we really have no idea how she got there in the first place.)

I breezed through this book in about two hours.  It's really not a very difficult read.  If not for a sex scene it would probably be more interesting for middle schoolers than actual high schoolers.  Though since there are no sexy vampires or wizards or anything, I'm not sure how interested kids would be in it, since none of them would have been alive in 1978 and unless they watched "That 70s Show" it's unlikely they'd know much of anything about that time period.  (It doesn't seem to me like much of a time worth remembering or reliving unless those were your golden years.)

Anyway, my rambling aside, it was an entertaining book, but the end disappointed me.  Shay never actually deals with her issues of her bad mother or absent father.  In fact, the way things play out it's like the author is tacitly condoning running from your problems.  I think it would have been better if Shay had been able to interact with her mother in 1978 and maybe convince her to be a better mom in 2006.  But that's probably just me.

That is all.