This was a terrible little book. The author has written one of my favorite YA books, A New Penny (also later published in paperback as Love Is Never Enough). Like that book, this one is also about the problems of young marriage, or in this case, young engagement. In A New Penny, Hank and Carey "have to" get married because she's pregnant, and she drops out of high school, so the book is mainly about her realizing that this life will work better for them if she goes back to school and tries to be more of a partner in the marriage.

In Mixed-Up Summer, Gay has taken a year after high school to work as a aide in a nursing home, to see if she likes that kind of work well enough to go to nursing school instead of regular college. She is semi-engaged to Tom, a serious young man who had a rough life (his deceased father was and his still living mother is an alcoholic), but who has worked hard to start an appliance repair business. Gay can't make up her mind if she loves Tom enough to marry him, especially because he doesn't seem to have much empathy for people. Gay loves her job, but Tom constantly nags her to quit, saying that it's a nasty place and that most of the residents are losers.

Unlike most such books, I honestly didn't know if Gay would decide to marry Tom or not. And at points I couldn't decide if I wanted her to marry Tom or not. His childhood was difficult, but I'm disgusted that instead of being proud of Gay for doing such difficult, important, and caring work, he hates that she works in the nursing home. I was also kind of disgusted by Gay's parents. Clearly, they're meant to be portrayed as supportive, but I kind of think they were also idiots at times. Gay's mother is a nurse, and there's nothing more she would like than to see Gay follow in her footsteps. Yet when Gay complains that Tom nags her to leave her job, Gay's mother doesn't seem to think that's a big deal, and even accuses Gay of trying to change Tom and of being too hard on him. If Tom's attitude about her job weren't bad enough, he also admits that he thinks Gay's own father is a bit of a loser because he can no longer afford to farm his land, and ended up taking a regular job.

And what parents tell their daughter that it's just dandy for her to get married at 19 -- they'll still pay for her college anyway! Different times, I know, but .... To be fair, this isn't the first book I've read from roughly that time period (1970s), or maybe a little earlier, where the idea was put forth that college might actually be easier if you get married first, because you'll be all "settled down" and it will be easier to study. As if!

I'm also reminded of how many times in modern romantic comedies, the heroine is about to marry a nice but absolutely wrong-for-her guy that she doesn't love. How do these heroines get that close to the altar when they either don't love the guy, or aren't sure if they do? And I'm also astounded by stories of people who need serious relationship counseling before getting married. If it needs that much work before the pressures of marriage, the changes aren't good that it will last. Sigh... ( )