My First Love and Other Disasters

Victoria Martin #2

by Francine Pascal

Someone puts his hand on my shoulder, and when I turn around my knees almost crumble. It's him.
Victoria Martin's in a bad way. Falling for Jim, the school hottie, was just the start of it; now she finds herself caught up in major plots to win him over, while at the same time getting rid of his annoyingly gorgeous girlfriend, Gloria. So when she hears that Jim's going to be spending the whole summer on Fire Island, Victoria knows that this is her chance to be noticed and signs herself up for a summer as a mother's helper there. It's got to work! But Victoria's about to learn that first love can easily collapse into sheer disaster...

Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Childrens, Summer, Teen

240 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Francine Paula Pascal was an American author best known for her Sweet Valley series of young adult novels. Sweet Valley High, the backbone of the collection, was made into a television series, which led to several spin-offs, including The Unicorn Club and Sweet Valley University. Although most of these books were published in the 1980s and 1990s, they remained so popular that several titles were re-released decades later.

Reviews

[elissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before she started with Sweet Valley and other series, Pascal wrote a few novels that I really liked when I was about 12.

[Michelle Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book when I was about 13 years old, and I still remember how hilarious it was. The scene where Victoria and her best friend go to the shoe store where Jim works is probably the single most hysterically funny scene EVER. I recall actually laughing out loud at parts of the book, tears streaming.

Having said all this, the book does also confront some tough topics, like the fact that Jim has a girlfriend and so is Victoria behaving well by scheming and fooling around with him? What about the 'other guy', a boy named Barry who has a good heart and who makes Victoria laugh and feel comfortable - is he a better choice of boyfriend? How does a young girl behave away from home for the first time? How can she balance adult responsibilities and assert her independence? How do you stand up for yourself when you've being taken advantage of?

Overall, I think this book is still relevant, and if I had a preteen daughter, I'd give her this book to read - and I'd read it again myself!

[Jodie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just enjoyed this a lot. Her books were my favorite YA when I was growing up. I just loved her characters. They were relatable and the situations that she put them in where realistic.

[Juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

'My First Love and Other Disasters' is the second book in the Victoria Martin Trilogy. I enjoyed this one much more than the first one because it was a bit more relatable and funny. Victoria finds herself babysitting two young kids on an island where there's the perfect man and the totally dorky best guy friend. But which one will win her heart in the end?

This book was a bit more mature than the first and a bit more humorous. It related some more realistic issus in the teen world than the first one did like A. Who you should date. B. Earning trust. C. Decided how far is too far or D. Learning responsibility.

I recommend this, again, to anyone who wishes to read something light and easy on a Sunday afternoon.

[Li Sian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very enjoyable and defied neat happy endings in that low-key 'let's be realistic' YA way, like: so the dude you like is a shitty spoilt dude and the dude who likes you but whom you didn't find very exciting actually turns out to be funny and giving and nice, but! End of the book, you're both still just friends, just kicking it, and that's nice, and the nice dude never gets mentioned again because you're just friends. Which I think is a very valuable lesson for overwrought 15 year olds who read Francine Pascal, so good job there, hahaha.

[Angélique (Angel) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 Stars. Despite my annoyance with the protagonist, this turned out to be an okay book. Some of Victoria's thoughts and views really tickled me. The plot wasn't enthralling, but it was somewhat entertaining.

[Martine · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was frustrating that the protagonist was brought up in a world thinking that people who disrespected her, especially in areas of consent, were right and fine to do so, and I worry for young people reading it that they might believe her in terms of what she thinks is true during those specific scenes. I know the whole point was that Jim was a jerk, but the characters never reflected on the fact that those moments were unhealthy and, truthfully, illegal. I can't stand when Teen Fiction does that.

It wasn't a total loss, though. There were some funny moments, relatable babysitting incidents, and Barry was killin' it (although he came off really strongly at first).

[Nora · Rating 5 out of 5]

So '70s, delightful. Francine Pascal is a bit of a genius. A fifteen-year-old girl becomes a mother's helper on Fire Island so she can capture a dreamy boy who turns out to be a predatory no-goodnik. The adults on Fire Island are selfish lushes cheating on each other who make their mothers helpers work too hard for too little money. That sounded accurate but some of the other depictions of Fire Island were not realistic. Oh, there's even a rescue at sea!

[Gato Negro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am re-reading a few childhood faves in an attempt to 'lighten up' my reading list every so often.
This was a book I enjoyed as a teenager, with its age-appropriate shenanigans, and the idea of a promising summer job in an affluent setting, etc. but revisiting this book as an adult proved to be curiously difficult. My 3 star review is an average of what I might have offered as a 13 year old and what I am offering now.

[Minju Kang · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first love and other disasters
By Francine Pascal

Victoria, now fifteen and having just finished her freshman year of high school, she is so startled and focused on getting her parents to allow her to take a job as a "Mother helper" to their glamorous divorced neighbor when she spends the summer on Fire Island because of her opportunity to ensnare her crush, the hunky new guy at school, Jim, who will be spending the summer there. But the situation is further complicated by the fact that Jim already has a girlfriend, Gloria. Now, Victoria try to find the way to get close to her first love Jim.

I really love this book because it is very entertaining, romantic, and also mature than what I thought of. Especially, I like the part where Victoria and her best friend Steffi went to the shoe store where Jim works, for the first mission to get close to him. But sadly, it turn out to be the most hysterically funny scene ever. Like in the book shows, "I absolutely cannot let him go back down to that cellar again for shoes I'm never going to put on once I take them out of the store. besides, he'll despise me forever if I do... You've got to picture Steffi still doubled over on the floor"(26). This scene made me hilarious and inspired me because it is funny to imagine Steffi is just lying in the floor watching Victoria is making out awfully bad and this is disaster for Victoria ever!

I recommend this book to the teenagers between 13 to 19 years old who like to read humor, comedy, and romentic book.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book more than once when I was about 12 or 13 years old. I liked this book because the main character was different than a lot of girls in romance books of that time. She made stupid decisions, she lied, she was unapologetic about trying to steal another girls boyfriend, had smoked pot and drank and it wasn't a big deal (most teens did during the time period the book was written. The late 70's). I remember my friends and I used to joke about one of the lines out of the book. ...and it wasn't his keys.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books as a teen. Hysterically funny.

[Sheila Read · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read so many of these books I can't remember all of them.

[Elissa]

I LOVED this book when I was a teenager! Haven't read it since then...bet it would be funny

[Jonina]

I suddenly remembered the steamy scene in this book and now I'm thinking dayme. I don't remember the exact details but that making out scene was really good for young girls to read. Whenever Victoria was uncomfortable during the makeout scene, she would outright tell that dude to stop. I think she didn't allow that guy to make her feel guilty for not telling him touch her where he wanted and she stood firm. I accidentally learned something good while giggling over the one "sexy scene."