Cross My Heart

...Shipley's book – a cycle of eight stories that take place in small-town Ontario during the 1960s – deserves praise for the ways in which it deviates from most young adult fiction, usually novels set in the present-day. While the theme of coming-of-age is present, to some extent, in every young adult book, Shipley provides a full picture of her narrator's growing pains. Unlike many texts that tend to focus on a "year in the life" or a "turning-point summer," Cross My Heart traces Jill's experiences over a period of several years. We see her change from a girl who is horrified by her first French kiss to a teenager, bewildered by her awakening sexuality, to a young woman with a steady boyfriend. The absence, in these stories, of the kinds of issues that dominate other teen fiction allows Shipley to focus more substantially on Jill's character. This is not to say that her world is without problems: her relative position of privilege as a highly intelligent daughter of loving, middle-class parents twice results in the loss of a good friend (once with Renata, who comes from a broken home, and again with Carol-Anne, who goes to a vocational, rather than an academic, school and, unlike Jill, sets her sights on marriage rather than a career). A recurring concern which reflects the rise of feminism in the 1960s, is what girls should aspire to – careers, or marriage and motherhood. Grandma Pemberton encourages Jill and her two sisters to marry; their mother insists that they focus on their education and become independent. Jill's sister Nory, an oddball outsider who drops out of high school, with dreams of hitchhiking in Europe and changing her name to Oriana Opal, becomes the hippie element in the book. Her other sister Elissa, who gets married young, fulfills more traditional gender expectations. Her friend Bridget, who decides to enter a convent, models yet another female destiny. For Jill, the challenge is how to find the right role for her. In the last story, after she comes to the important realization that she loves reading, she decides that, "instead of being a career girl when [she] finish[es] school, [she will] be a writer . . . [She will] live in Paris or London and produce profound collections of poems and significant novels" (116). In the end ...Cross My Heart gestures toward the kunstlerroman...

Cross My Heart presents a series of short, interconnected stories about a girl growing up in southwestern Ontario during the 1960s. The stories piece together various aspects of teenagehood, from eccentric parents, to the rise and fall of friendships, to sexual discovery. Jill is the youngest of three Summerfield daughters, each of whom is finding her own path through life. Elissa is the picture-perfect girl on the road to a young marriage. Nory is a self-absorbed dreamer who will eventually choose a bohemian lifestyle. Jill, watching them grow up, tries to understand where she fits in and where she chooses not to fit in, as the girls' parents encourage their daughters to be special, successful, and above all, to achieve something for themselves before they settle down. Jill's friends are alternately troubled or shallow, but share the desire to find love and be coupled and/or married, while Jill tries to negotiate a balance between being 'normal' and being happy. By the end of the book, Jill has started to claim her own territory, following a path unlike one that has been followed by anyone else around her.

Shipley's writing is both clear and nuanced, allowing room for the subtleties of Jill's character to emerge. The prescribed gender roles of the time are well illustrated and naturalized, and Jill's own quiet struggles against these roles demonstrates an intelligent but realistically drawn character.

The first stories in the book are the most successful in integrating the character's emotional development, narrative, and setting. The last story, 'Overtures,' is clichéd in its attempts to present Jill as moving away from the restrictions of growing up female in a small town. Overall, however, the collection presents the complexity of teenage experience, and shows with humour and compassion the confusion experienced by girls attempting to understand the world they live in. Recommended.

In this collection of short stories, award-winning author Jocelyn Shipley takes us back to the days of Bobby Vinton and the Beatles . . . However, the book is much more than a trip down memory lane. The stories deal with coming of age issues which will strike a chord with modern teenage readers because they are so true to life and honest...

There is comedy and humour in most of the stories, although it is often rather dark. The eight stories are linked both by character and setting so readers truly feel a part of Jill's family and her wider circle of friends within her small Ontario town. Jill matures throughout the stories and deals with all the pleasures and pains of the teenage years...

These are strong stories dealing with universal themes, and thus should have wide appeal among teenage readers.

4****, Highly Recommended