Camilla (Camilla #1)

Synopsis:
One is the loneliest number...
15-year-old Camilla Dickinson has led a sheltered life with her architect father and stunningly beautiful mother.  But suddenly, the security she's always known vanishes as her parents' marriage begins to crumble--and Camilla is caught in the middle.  Then she meets Frank, her best friend's brother, and he's someone she can really talk to about life, death, God, and her dream of becoming an astronomer.  As Camilla and Frank roam the streets of New York City together, lost in conversation, and he introduces her to people who are so different from anyone she has met before, he opens her eyes to worlds beyond her own, almost as if he were a telescope helping her to see the stars.  But will Camilla's first love be all she hopes, or will Frank just add more heartbreak to her life?

"A thought-provoking story about a young girl's first romance, her devastation over her own parents' marital problems, and the growth of her own sense of self is back in print and should find a wide audience among old and new L'Engle fans. Perceptive and timely." - Booklist

My Rating: More than 5 stars
Who Recommended it to Me: No one really.  I like Madeleine L'Engle and her book A Wrinkle in Time so I was pleased to find that she had written other books.  So i picked up this book because of the author, not the story or plot. 
Who I Would Recommend it To: everyone should read this book. 

My review:
The book Camilla by Madeleine L'Engle is truly amazing.  There is so much meaning packed into 247 pages. I think Camilla Dickinson could be one of my favorite female protagonists of all time.  I loved this book so much.  I read it for the first time in August 2011 and was looking through my bookshelf and decided to reread this.  I'm so glad I did.  I loved it the first time of course but this time it was soo much better, I can hardly explain it.
   I was surprised that this book was written such a long time ago--the middle of the 20th century.  It seemed modern in some ways but very old-fashioned in others.  The way that Camilla talked to her friends was definitely not the way that modern girls talk to their friends.  Everything was more polite and subdued with these girls, and even though they were their complete selves around their friends, they seemed completely different in some aspects.  But I didn't think much of this until I saw the publication date, which was 1951.  And in fact I didn't know there was a sequel until just a minute ago as I was looking at the page on GoodReads.com.
   This book taught me a lot and brought up interesting views on love, life, God, struggle, and a lot of other things that have always left me pondering.  Like Camilla, I believe in God but not the kind of god that other Pres-Byterians believe in. This book shows the struggles of an average girl whose parents are struggling to keep their marriage intact and the way her best friends' parents were having the same.  I think the reason that Camilla and Frank bonded so much was that they were going through similar struggles; just as Camilla and Luisa (her best friend, Frank's sister) bonded. Unlike a lot of teenage couples, Camilla and Frank actually had some meaning to their relationship and talked about things that were important, intelligent, and thoughtful.  A lot of times, Twilight for example, the boy and the girl say things to each other like, "Oh, I can't live without you, Edward! You're my life!" which is just stupid and makes me want to hurl.
   If you want to read Camilla, you should know that this is a good book for when you're feeling sad and feel bad for yourself and want to read a sad, feel-bad-for-yourself book.  A lot of times when people are sad they want a pick-me-up, overly happy book, but I know a lot of times when I feel mad or sad or something in that realm I want a book that will make me even sadder, and though I didn't cry, this book made me want to cry a few times.  I loved this book, though.  More than 5 stars for Madeleine L'Engle.