Hard Love

Hard Love is an extraordinary novel by Ellen Wittlinger. The main character John Gaiardi , biggest and only hobby is reading and writing a zines.Zines are like independent magazines, a creative style of art, they were popular in the early nineties but slowly died out . Zine writers express the truth in their lives, even if it hurts;Writers also use fake names which makes it easier for them to be honest with readers.John uses a fake name in his zine and is known as Geovanni. He is a high school Senior who feels alienated from his emotions, confused, alone, and has a spoiling relationship with family and friends. He claims to be the biggest fan of Marisol Guzman, another zine writer.There are so many feelings and emotions, especially in the way that Geo and Marisol write in their zines. They both solve one of their biggest problems through writing but through each other as well. Wittlinger had me flipping through the pages, curiously wondering what was going to happen next.
John leaves a bad first impression in the beginning of the book by whining mostly about his life, but then gets more personal when he shares parts of his relationship with his dad in his zine the Bananafish. His parents split up when he was a freshman in high school; besides them admitting never loving each other they also told him they only stayed together because of him. John new at a young age that his parents had a broken relationship full of anger and hate for each other, but never thought he was the worst accident in both his parents lives. His zine often also covers him not knowing if he was straight or gay, but he ends up finding his answer later on in the book. Another issue John wrote about was his alienation with society. His displacement with society was because he felt that everyone was the same. Him not knowing if he was straight was also another reason why he felt so detached. John was confused and felt left back since other teenagers his age were already moving forward from similar obstacles.Although John in the beginning made himself look like a loner who did not accept socially anybody he opened himself up because of his admiration of another local writer Marisol.
John and Marisol meet at a local book store where they both drop off their zine articles each month. He describes her as having a dike look and having the first impression of being intimidating in a way. Every month John would come at that exact time to met with Marisol and tried to make it look like a coincidence. Their friendship was able to grow after John told Marisol he was gay and that he wasn't another pervert. Problem is that John is not sure if he is gay for certain and is not sure if he wants to lust stay friends with her. Marisol is a lesbian and finds it hard to trust guys. She had gone through tough times as well in her life, like having her first relationship with a girl she thought she was in love with and being adopted out of a foreign country. Marisol is very mature for her age and is always defensive. She gives the impression of strength but in reality she is weak inside. Through out the book I wanted John and Marisol to become more then just friends since their friendship grew stronger.
John's views in life can be viewed as a puzzle, relating to average teenagers emotionally. I learned love is not the easiest thing, but you do gain a lot of experience from relationships like building the person you are. Reading Hard Love will make you look back at your first love and remind you the benefits gained from the relationship. I could relate to the zines mentioned in the book motivating me to start one. I would recommend this book to teenagers. The book at times did get confusing but kept me interested because of the different styles of art that were used creatively like the poetry.Hard Love was also more meaningful than other books and covers more of the depressing things of a teenage life.