I've just finished Jack, a novel I highly recommend for a summer's day in the park, a window seat by the train or plane, a spare few hours in a coffee shop, or tucked up in bed at home. You can't not smile when you read this book.
Jack made me think of Juno, a film I also highly recommend (erm, on DVD). While both stories are very much about the title characters learning to cope with events that overtake them, Jack seems way more innocent than Juno.
Jack had just about managed to kiss his girlfriend by the end of the book, but Juno had already got herself knocked up right at the start of the film. I was watching a television programme last night where a young interviewee said that losing his virginity at 14 was considered late - most of his friends were already sexually active by the age of 12. The mind boggles.
How different are teenagers now than in the Eighties (when I was growing up)? Have their (or our) morals loosened with the decades? Or are people just more open about it now, so popular culture follows?
