by Thea Glassman
Read by Christine Lakin
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Content: There is swearing, including multiple f-bombs, as well as talk of bullying. It’s in the Film section of the bookstore.

When we recently drove down to Dallas to see the eclipse, I went through my backlog of audiobooks, looking for something interesting we could listen to and I landed on this. From the subtitle – How 7 Teen Shows Transformed Television – it sounded like an interesting look at pop culture and the ways that teen stories can affect television as a whole. She was looking at The Fresh Prince of Bel Aire, My So-Called Life, Dawson’s Creek, The OC, Freaks & Geeks, Friday Night Lights, and Glee. Although we’ve not watched many of the shows, we figured, why not listen and see if we learn anything interesting?

What we got – and we bailed on about half of it – was a fangirl’s treatise on each show. At one point, one of the girls asked “What is her thesis? Does she even have one?” And we had to say that her thesis, as far as we could tell, was “I loved these shows, and you should too.” She documented each series from the beginning to the end, talking about and to writers, creators, and maybe actors. Many personal interviews were going to be done. This is all fine and good: if you love your ’90s teen soaps, then more power to you. I am just objecting to the idea that there was substance to this book. Because there wasn’t.

We ended up skipping The OC, Freaks & Geeks, and Friday Night Lights because we just weren’t that interested in what she had to say. But, I suppose, if you, like her, loved these shows, you’d probably get more out of this book than I did.