Are U 4 Real?

by Sara Kadefors

Overview

Kyla is exactly the kind of girl Alex could never talk to in real life. She's a gorgeous, outspoken L.A. girl who parties to forget about her absent father and depressed mother. He's a shy ballet dancer from outside San Francisco who's never been kissed. Luckily, when these sixteen-year-olds meet for the first time it's not in real life - it's in a chat room. Alex and Kyla quickly forge a friendship that's far from virtual - maybe they're even falling in love. But what happens when the soul mate you've never met moves from online to in person?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101057070
Publisher:	Penguin Young Readers Group
Publication date:	05/14/2009
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
File size:	428 KB
Age Range:	14 Years

About the Author

Sara Kadefors writes for both teens and adults. She lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

are u 4 real? was originally published as Sandor/Ida, and is Sweden’s all-time best-selling young adult novel. The book has been published in ten languages, was made into a feature film, and won the 2001 August Prize, Sweden’s equivalent of the National Book Award.

Editorial Reviews

In this bestselling Swedish novel, Kadefors shows a thorough understanding of teenage dialogue and anxieties. When they first meet online, L.A. party girl, Kyla, and male ballet dancer, Alex, are careful not to reveal too much about their troubled backgrounds. But as lies lead to hurtful misunderstandings, truths about their dysfunctional families and problems with friends emerge (Kyla's mother is clinically depressed; Alex's Russian mother is overbearing and overprotective). Email messages, inserted into the text, reveal plenty of emotion ("Why can't our moms get that we're human beings, not some puppets they can use to act out scenes in the lives they want?"), but little information about specific issues; Kadefors's third-person narrative proves more enlightening in revealing the teens' conflicts and insecurities. There are some pacing problems: it seems to take forever for Kyla and Alex to feel comfortable enough with each other to be honest, and the story's denouement drags on. However, there is enough drama present throughout the book to keep readers on board until Kyla's and Alex's roller-coaster relationship turns into a romantic connection. Ages 14-up.
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Publishers Weekly

Gr 9 Up—Alex is a shy and socially awkward boy from Oakland, and although he is straight, everyone thinks he is gay because he is a ballet dancer. Kyla is a beautiful party girl from Los Angeles who drinks too much and sleeps around. Her parents are divorced, her mother is clinically depressed, and her father is uninvolved in her life, except for an occasional check. One night, the teens meet online, and they develop a relationship, gradually opening up more and more to one another about their lives. When they meet in real life, however, the conflicts between them threaten to derail their budding romance. This is an English translation of an award-winning Swedish book, Sandor Slash Ida, originally published in 2001 and later made into a film. At times, it shows its age, but its essential appeal is in its portrayal of how two very different teens manage to connect with each other, despite all their insecurities and missteps along the way. Kadefors also has fun with subverting some of the usual stereotypes. Of the two, Alex is the more sympathetic. Kyla does some cruel things to him and other people, actions that are only partially explained by her painful family situation, and it is often difficult to understand why Alex would continue to be attracted to her. Parts of the plot have not translated well from the Swedish setting to contemporary California, but this book may appeal to some readers because of the online angle and the romance between opposites.—Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

School Library Journal

Alex and Kyla feel trapped in their respective lives-he as a socially outcast ballet dancer fulfilling his mother's dreams by proxy, she as a lonely, hard-partying Hollywood girl barely propping up her depressed mom-and both think they've found a true friend in an online chat room. Beginning with half-truths and outright lies, the teens quickly drop their facades to be "4 real" with each other. Friendship turns to a crush as supportive, combative, bantering, flirtatious e-mails between the teens punctuate the alternating strands of their struggles with homophobic bullying, crippling shyness, ghastly frenemies, drunken misjudgments and parents who just don't understand. Their first face-to-face meetings are disastrous, as they allow anxiety and the skepticism of others to poison their idyll, but even after months of no contact, neither can shake the possibility that they share something special. Predictable but addictive plotting, combined with Alex's and Kyra's trenchant, deeply conflicted inner monologues, will keep readers rooting for these two crazy kids to navigate the messy transition from online to real-life romance. (Fiction. YA)

Kirkus Reviews