I Was a Teenage Popsicle (Novel)

Bev Katz Rosenbaum

I Was A Teenage Popsicle

ISBN 0-425-21180-0

Berkley Jam Books

12.50$ CAN

Speculations on the future have always been overly exaggerated. Take for example, Star Trek, we live in 2007, and yet we still don’t walk into people with pointy ears or grizzly looking bear-like people. Bev Katz Rosenbaum puts her own twist on what the future would be like in I Was A Teenage Popsicle.

Floe Ryan, Venice Beach’s very first “teenage popsicle”, is faced with an utterly different world than the one she remembers. In 2006, Floe was diagnosed with “lympaticosis, a highly contagious respiratory disease” but wakes up in 2016 cured. Faced with the new technology and culture of the future, Floe must adapt to living with her younger (now older sister), attending a new school, and keeping her “vitrification” (frozenness) a secret from the world.

Rosenbaum crafts the novel in such a way that the reader finds themselves easily transitioned into the fictional future. Her speculations on the customs, devices and trends of the future aren’t too drastic. The reader is capable of making the link from their reality to Floe’s without questioning the evolution. The one aspect that makes this book believable is Floe, the reader’s one link to the present; they are introduced to the future at the same time as her. Any doubts that might linger in the reader’s mind are the same as Floe’s, therefore an answer is given shortly after, easing the reading process.

The language throughout the book is very colloquial and Rosenbaum achieves this by delivering the story through Floe’s point of view. The novel is filled with humour and teenage clichés that make it perfect for any teenager. The problems Floe is faced with, dealing with an old crush, adapting and feeling alienated, are problems that any reader can relate with.

I Was A Teenage Popsicle is a must read for any young adult or chick literature fanatic. All readers who enjoy Meg Cabot, or Rachel Cohn, would gobble up Rosenbaum’s debut novel. All those who can’t get enough of Floe are anticipating the sequel Beyond Cool, which promises more of her witty remarks and Rosenbaum’s future.