The Teenage Textbook
by Adrian Tan
This book is for teenagers from 11 to 81. It is a story about love, lust and lechery, all happening in the pressing space of six-anda-half weeks (but as this is a family book, we shall not say where or how it’s pressing.) Lee Mui Ee is the Ice Cream Girl, Tom D’Cruz, the Dashing Athletic Hero, Yeo Chung Kai is Mr Outstandingly Average while Sissy Song and Loo Kok Sean are the Princess of PJC and the Aspiring College Cassanova respectively. Who will melt the Ice Cream Girl?
The answers to these and many other earth- (or should we say) milk-shaking problems are here as the Ice Cream Girl decides to make a clean breast of it. “I’ve passed teenhood.”
Size: 115 x 180 mm
Extent: 176 pages
Binding: Paperback
Weight: 216 g
ISBN: 978-981-3002-21-0
Reviews
Heartbreak humour guaranteed to appeal to anyone who’s ever been a teenager at some point of time. Achingly funny.
– Michael Chiang
From Goodreads
It's quintessentially Singaporean - the best parts of it. We thrive in the cheesy, the nostalgic, toe-ing the line of tacky (stay within it and we're safe). Teenage Textbook is your JC puppy love condensed into a slim one-sitting novel. The style is tongue-in-cheek, stripped of its pretension.
It was hilarious and so lighthearted… 10/10 would recommend for a good laugh and a bittersweet teen romance.
One of the very few books I have read more than once. Light and funny Singapore teenage romance novel.
It gave me all kinds of nostalgic feels as I felt like I went back to school. Read this in one sitting and I laughed at the cheesiness and clichés but that is what makes this a classic, right?
This book had a hey-day in the late 1980s-early 1990s, bringing up a possible generation of Singaporean youths. The school principal was called Elvis, and the two teenagers in love kept saying "QED - Quite Easily Done".
An excellent read for secondary school students and JC students, or any adult who wants to reminiscence their bashful teenage years.
Puns aside, the book is actually hilarious in a delightfully quirky way. The author frequently breaks the fourth wall and in a very self-assured, engaging voice he pokes gentle fun at the world's source of entertainment: teenagers.
Teenage Textbook is a zesty, grubby, refreshing and playful ode to Singaporean school days that don't seem to exist anymore.
As long as you're a product of the Singaporean public school system, this book and its sequel will bring on heaps of nostalgia and fun. Love it.