Very Deadly Yours

by Carolyn Keene

Book Overview

Personal: Slightly psycho sweetheart seeks teen detective for date with death - wear white. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067164226X
• ISBN13: 9780671642266
• Release Date: January 1988
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.15 lbs.
• Age Range: 12 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 7 and higher

Customer Reviews

Nancy is now an eighties woman that is brave and courts danger

One of the best ways to track the changes in American social mores and culture over the last seven decades is to read books in the Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew collections. Changes in the role of women, the language, interactions with each other and simple items such as how to meet people of the opposite sex are all reflected in the stories. This story opens with Nancy's friend Bess Marvin looking through the romantic personal column of the local paper. When she finds one that interests her, she points it out to Nancy and her other friend George Fayne and then answers it against their advice. The meeting does not go well and Bess is in fear for her life. Of course, the first thing she does is contact Nancy and that begins a tale of danger and the pursuit of ruthless criminals. Nancy does most of the investigating by herself in this story, George and Bess receive only brief mentions and Nancy's beloved boyfriend Ned is hit by a car and laid up in the hospital. Nancy is much more individually assertive; she is knocked unconscious and pursues a male suspect in a rainstorm in a darkened area where the road is closed. She is very much the eighties woman, courting danger with confidence. The main difference between this story and many of the earlier ones is that in this case, her opponent physically assaults Nancy. In earlier stories, there was very little in the area of physical attack, the case was the investigation of a crime and Ned or Nancy's father handled whatever rough stuff there was. It is certainly a more realistic tactic and in my opinion a welcome one.