Do You Call That a Dream Date?

by Mary Anderson

Fourteen-year-old Jennifer overlooks the consequences and uses an essay written by her older sister as her entry in a school contest that is offering a date with a famous rock star to the winner.

Genres: Young Adult

163 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

Born in 1939, Mary Anderson is an American author of mystery novels for children and young adults.

Reviews

[Grace Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a freaking joy to read. Just go on Ebay and buy this already. I actually had this book as a kid, as it was a part of the Especially For Girls book club that I had annoyingly begged my mom to let me join for the low price of $3.95 per book, every 6 weeks 💖📚

Anyway, the writing is really sharp, witty and FUN, written in the protagonist's voice which is really charming and conversational. It's basically like chatting with your BFF at age 14 in 1987 about your barftastic older sister and your enduring crush on this rock star named Matt Gates because he's like, sooo handsome and mature 🤣🤣💘💘💘

So basically our protag Jenny just cheated on her essay to win a date night with her favorite rock star! I MEAN, I'd probably do the same 🤣🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️💖💖 But alas, nothing gold can stay and she gets found out by her smarmy and snooty older sister, whose essay about the Beatles was reappropriated (aka stolen) and used to enter the Dream Date contest. Complete and utter humiliation ensues but there IS a happy ending. Something about not needing to cheat to have someone love you for YOU, and being truly SEEN by someone who sees that you're a monumental fuck up but digging you anyway.

4 out of 5 very public humiliations after it is revealed you cheated to win the "dream date with rockstar Matt Gates" contest. Having to apologize to the ENTIRE high school in the auditorium? The HORROR!! But hey, at least you got to actually GO on the dream date with that hunky rockstar, FTW!! 😜🙌🏼💖

[Michelle Cesena · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love it <3

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Apparently in the eighties they would publish ANYTHING, and SLJ would review it.