Back When You Were Easier to Love

Back When You Were Easier to Love
By Emily Wing Smith
Dutton Books, 2011. 296 pgs. Young Adult

When Joy moved to Haven, Utah, she quickly started dating Zan, who was cooler than everyone else there: he was so "above" the silly Mormon culture, with the Sprite drinking and Disney-movie-watching-parties and "Modest is Hottest" t-shirts, and Mormons in general, since they aren't concerned about real issues and think they're better than everyone else. In Zan, Joy finally felt like she was somebody, but when he completed his GED and took off to California to go to college, Joy's world fell apart. Now she's desperate to get "closure" (which really means she's desperate to get Zan back), and she convinces Zan's friend Noah to drive her to California, even though she can't stand, since he's king of the Soccer Lovin' Kids--so cool and handsome he can even make being a Mormon okay.They confront Zan, and Joy has to realize what that maybe she hasn’t been seeing things clearly.

Joy's attitude can be really hard to take: she's so disdainful towards Haven (from the library, to the school, to the people) and toward Mormon culture (she likes the faith, just not the culture), and even toward her friends. While she does come to realize that she's not better than everyone else, I think it might be too little, too late. Particularly for LDS readers, this could be a hard one to swallow, since it does mock the culture and the people. Joy is so much "better" than everyone else, that it makes it really hard to like her and to care about what happens to her. On the other hand, readers who can get past the fact that Joy is pretty stuck up initially (and I think, still somewhat at the end), there are some light-hearted moments to enjoy---and Noah is a cutie. All in all, I'm not quite sure what to think.

AE