One Boy At/Time #128

by Diana Gregory

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0553266713
• ISBN13: 9780553266719
• Release Date: July 1987
• Publisher: Bantam Books for Young Readers
• Length: 150 Pages
• Weight: 0.22 lbs.
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Torn between two loves...

Featuring a (slightly) surprising ending, "One Boy at a Time" is one of few Sweet Dreams books that may actually manage to keep its readers guessing. In another Sweet Dreams rarity, the novel attempts to infuse a bit of cultural diversity by focusing on main character Wendy Fong, a third generation Chinese American. By today's standards of political correctness, the characterization of Wendy, her parents, and even her grandmother may seem just slightly stereotypical, but overall the novel seems to handle fairly convincingly Wendy's struggles to reconcile her Chinese heritage and her American upbringing. The romantic storyline in which Wendy is torn between recent flame Jay Hammond, the school's swimming star whose recent athletic successes have puffed up his ego, and new kid in town, Marc Chandler, whom Wendy unabashedly uses to try to make Jay jealous, could have easily become painfully annoying, but the likeability of Wendy makes it possible to sympathize with her situation, despite her shoddy treatment of both Marc and Jay. But it is the novel's right-on conclusion that ultimately redeems it.