Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #887780 in Books
• Published on: 2004-11-01
• Released on: 2004-10-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Spirited and sharply intelligent, if sometimes farfetched, this knowing coming-of-age story follows Lucy Diamond of Great Falls, Mont., for two years, from 14 to 16. They're turbulent years, but more so for Lucy because her parents, themselves married as teenagers, are both self-centered, trying to recapture the youth they feel they missed. Chuck, her father, appears only for a few days every few months; he is a charmer, and Lucy has inherited his humor and smart mouth. Though he claims to be a logger, it becomes clear that there must be other reasons for his long disappearances. Lucy's mother, Lainee, frustrated by her absent husband, has a long string of boyfriends, all of whom, like her husband, eventually disappear. Lucy, meanwhile, drifts into an affair with her best friend, scrawny, funny Kenny, whose divorced mother is an alcoholic. Then Kenny, too, is forced to move away when his mother loses custody, and Lucy recognizes she is in the same boat as her mother, her happiness contingent on the infrequent appearances of a traveling man. Lucy, clever beyond her years (what 16-year-old would think "It wasn't ten minutes before another bold five-year plan of abstinence lay in shambles"?) is such a plucky, proud, vulnerable character that the reader can't help falling for her. All the characters come alive, their stiletto tongues alternately wounding and caressing. Kenny, who truly loves Lucy, is sympathetic not just for himself, but for all the Kennys of the world who have little going for them but a kind nature and a true heart. When Lainee and Lucy finally bring their waiting days to an end, the unlikely conclusion owes more to fantasy than reality, but the emotions Fromm plumbs are painfully, poignantly real.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
A flat, lanky teenaged body and a closely shorn buzz cut are Lucy Diamond's most outstanding features. While Lucy doesn't feel she has much going for her in the "looks" department, pint-sized Kenny, her longtime jungle-gym playmate, sees her as the "goddess of cool." To Kenny, Lucy is incomparable and beautiful. To her parents, Lucy is the circumstance that caused them to marry so young. Lucy's father makes very few trips home and spends most of his time working as a lumberman in Canada. Her mother is happily prancing about town with a cheesy, horse-toothed co-worker in an eyebrow-raising relationship. Lucy is repulsed by her parents' overt sexuality and their marathon lovemaking sessions, but her relationship with Kenny is also taking a scorching turn in this direction and she wants to put on the brakes before she regrets it. Fromm explores the sexual evolution of a cynical teenage girl who has the spunk and wit to survive two flaky parents and the urges of unbridled adolescence. Elsa Gaztambide
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
"Pete Fromm is one of America's best-kept literary secrets." --Thom Jones, author of Pugilist at Rest

"I read Pete Fromm with growing admiration for the vigor of his well-made writing and for his generous heart."--Thomas McGuane, author of Keep the Change

"Vivid and sharp, written with a startling coolness that only serves to heighten the emotional forcefulness."--Kirkus Reviews
-- Review

Customer Reviews

Gritty, erotic and genuine
Just when "chick-lit" seems to have probed every female niche, Pete Fromm -- a guy -- comes along with one of the more startlingly beautiful and evocative tales of young womanhood in "As Cool As I Am."

Lucy Diamond's father is a wise-cracking lumberjack who says dumb things like "sharp as a bowling ball" and adios, amoebas!" and sends home lewd postcards from his job in a distant Canadian forest. He comes home to Great Falls, Mont., only a few times a year, and only for a few lusty days. And always, he buzz-cuts Lucy's hair.

Lucy's mother is present but often unaccounted for. With her husband gone and Lucy entering high school, she's taken a job and maybe a lover or two, leaving her daughter to contemplate life, love, sex and loyalty -- mostly her mother's -- on her own.

Lucy quickly proves to be a clear-eyed, graceful and immensely funny narrator. While she hurtles toward womanhood -- and all that entails -- she heaps insecurities upon uncertainties as she explores her own budding sexuality. But as Lucy blooms, her mother's youth is fading. The syncopation of their separate rise and fall provides the book's most tender and most trying elements.

Fromm's voice -- on loan to Lucy -- is provocative, gritty, erotic, hilarious and genuine, and this book is a fresh breath of teen spirit.

A Sometimes Implausible Coming of Age Novel
As Cool as I Am is an entertaining, well-written coming of age novel with one major flaw in it. The story follows Lucy, the young heroine in the novel, from about the ages of 14 to 16. She lives with her mom while her dad works as a logger, visiting only intermittently. She has only one close friend, a boy with whom she ultimately has what is pretty much an implausible physical relationship with. He moves away, and she takes up with another young man. Lucy is a fairly complicated character and I think Fromm does a very good job with her, other than her relationship with the young men--that struck me as a male fantasy more than anything else. Still--the novel kept me reading--the story is interesting and entertaining--a quick and easy read.

interesting coming of age story
I picked up this book at the library cause i liked the look of the cover. i found myself loving the characters especially Kenny who loves lucy so intensely with a love i think you only have when you're that young. the characters were old beyond thier years but it works because of the dialog and depth of the people. it was a rare library find that i think i may buy in paperback for my own home collection. i would definately recommend it for reading.