What to Read This Summer

'Miss American Pie' by Margaret Sartor

Your Inner Adolescent

Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the '70s
By Margaret Sartor

Most adolescent diaries should come to light only in bonfires. But Margaret Sartor's Miss American Pie: A Diary of Love, Secrets, and Growing Up in the '70s, written by a typical (boy crazy, bored, rebellious, religious) girl in Montgomery, Louisiana, and retrieved by Sartor 25 years later, is a charmer. August 1, 1974: "Doug Reed is naturally sexy, which I think could be a problem for a minister." November 15, 1974: "Today Mrs. Williams said I have the attention span of a bug." It all feels refreshingly authentic—like reality TV without the posturing.