Xangans are unique; they are the only blogging community who have named themselves after their on-line playground, Xanga.com, The World's Greatest Blogging Community. It is their jungle, their pulpit and endless party, Xanga. Knowing each other well onscreen, yet rarely meeting in real life, they form an Empire on which the Sun never Sets, straddling the world from Detroit to Liverpool, from Toronto to Singapore. Entertaining, quarrelsome, compassionate, bitchy, they have used Xanga to express their talents, their beliefs, their confusions, their pain, their joy, until it has become an essential and enduring part of their lives. I first joined Xanga in 2006. I too flirted with other blogging systems, and saw them swell to vast size, only to dwindled into irrelevance; Xanga has remained the only one in which the written word has ruled and flourished. In this collection of thirty-three blogs, stories and poems by Xangans writing today, some published writers, some - as yet - unknown, we hear the voices of on-line authors struggling to make sense of this world. From the raw cynicism of Lindensmith's "Another Night on the Town" to the life-affirming cheer of Lymne Hamel's "Blessings," we pass through eroticism, through the joys and terrors of love, through the conflicts of religion and the confusions of society, through satire, humor, horror and sentiment.
"From the cruelty of the playground to embarrassing parents to the trauma surrounding losing your virginity, Ray brings back all those adolescent happenings you'd rather not remember. But she makes you laugh as you do".--Kate Figes, "Elle" (Britain).
At Mt. Douglas (a.k.a. Mt. Drug) High, all the girls have feathered hair, and the sweet scent of Love's Baby Soft can't hide the musk of raw teenage anger, apathy, and desire. Sara Shaw is a girl full of fever and longing, a girl looking for something risky, something real. Her only possible salvation comes in the willowy form of the mysterious Justine, the outlaw girl in the torn skirt. The search for Justine will lead Sara on a daring odyssey into an underworld of hookers and johns, junkies and thieves, runaway girls and skater boys, and, ultimately, into a violent tragedy.
A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn't even life without drugs… It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth—and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful—and as timely—today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.
A dazzling, racy, and exuberant debut--Amanda Boyden tells the story of two Midwestern girls of privilege in the late 70s and early 80s and their shared plunge from innocence. "Pretty Little Dirty takes a classic coming-of-age tale and turns it inside out, then gives it a few kicks in the head for good measure. Funny, sexy, inventively told, and scary as hell—a gutsy debut."–Dani Shapiro, author of Family History Lisa sees the life of her gorgeous best friend Celeste as just about perfect: she has a gigantic house, two older sisters to coach her through the hazards of high school, and loving, lively parents. As Lisa's own home has long been a place devoid of joyful noise—her mother has shut herself off in her bedroom for years—Lisa joins the Diamond household, slipping into their routine of sit-down suppers and soaking in the delicious normalcy of Diamond family life. But what begins as the story of two young women living a charmed adolescence, one of mastering dance moves and the protocols of male-female interaction, soon swirls into an intoxicating novel of art, music, and self-destructive impulses as Lisa and Celeste dare each other ever onward.
The girls of Sacred Heart Holy Angels eye the good dancers at the all-ages club Metropolis. They waste afternoons at the mall, check out parties on the lake, burn through candid, casual sex. Everybody calls them the Whores on the Hill, but they don't care. It is the mid-'80s and they go to the last all-girls' school in Milwaukee, where innocence is scarce and happiness is something to grabbed at in the backseat of a fast car. Meet exuberant, uninhibited Astrid, her nervy, troubled friend Juli and Thisbe, the shy, ascetic newcomer. They are fifteen years old. And they believe they can take on the world, no matter what it calls them. But when euphoric promiscuity mixes with a series of dangerous, deadly pranks, their world at Sacred Heart Holy Angels can never be the same.
