Literature does reflect the time period it was written in and I believe that the two young adult books that I read for this assignment do a just job in showing this. Love and Other Four Letter Words sounded like it would be, somewhat, scandalous, but in fact it was just the opposite, and was very conservative. The book is about a sixteen-year-old girl, who is pulled out of her surroundings to live in New York City while her parents have a "trial separation". This results in one very unhappy teen who finds herself lost in such a big, busy city with a psychotically depressed mother and a father living over three-hundred miles away. The book shows how teens do have feelings about what their parents do; they care about what happens in their lives, even if they don't show it. Although teen years are a rough time to be pulled from your normal surroundings, Sammie, the main character, demonstrates how well teens can also adapt to situations they are put into. This novel displays teens as good people, not troublemakers as most adults think of them as, and accurately portrays most of today's teens. The parents and adults in this novel are illustrated in several ways. The mother is depressed, trapped in her self-help books, and certainly does not act as the adult in the household. The father is shown as the good guy turned bad, he runs away from the problem instead of working on it, causing his wife and daughter many problems in the long run. There is one truly good adult in this book, Shira. Shira is Sammie's mother's best friend; she is truly there to help at all times. She always has a smile on her face and encouraging words for Sammie. The adults pictured in this book show a wide variety of the adults in today's age, I think that it also reveals how teens view their parents and adults.
             The other young adult book that I read, Stoner and Spaz, was written from a sixteen
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