I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time when I was young, and loving it so much. I recall watching the movie, and it taking a special place in my heart, as well. So when I saw this book (though its cover first appealed to me), I was really eager to read it. This book was completely different from the tone and style of A Wrinkle in Time—at least, this is my opinion. So I was thrown off there. Also, it didn’t really feel like the voice came across right for the period it was based in. It felt like it could be any time at all, and it would fit, and it wasn’t unless they were talking about the war or the consequences and results of it that I felt like it couldn’t have been a girl, living in my time. Now, the story was pretty basic and bland. I did get a little bored with some of the school scenes and the chittery, little roommates of hers. I craved the chapters with Paul, because at least there was something interesting going on and a little bit of mystery as well, since I wanted Flip to get to know Paul, was anticipating their romantic interest in each other, and also wondering why he acted strange at times. Although I was not a fan of the boarding school setting, it did feel realistic, and I could almost picture most things. All the characters felt interesting, unique, and real, for the most part, except for those that were seldom mentioned, mentioned in passing, or that Flip never really got to know so that, even though I knew their names, I knew nothing about them nor liked them. The skiing thing got boring real fast. That’s all I have to say about that.The relationship that developed between Flip and Paul was super sweet and I felt like it was rich and genuine. I really liked it and admired the true friendship they had that then became a little bit of something more. However, I felt like the further I got into this book, the more I got to know Flip and Paul, and the closer they grew, the more like children they became. I read this book at the end of June, and I already can’t remember how old they were supposed to be. I think Paul was intended to be two years or so older than her. But it felt like they were ten-year-olds. I am not kidding. I liked them less and less and felt like they became increasingly immature. That may be why I loved their relationship, because it was like two sweet three year old kids holding hands for the first time and not even knowing that it meant anything. Also, though I believe that Flip was childish, I don’t believe it was her fault she was having a hard time at school, as Madame Percival claimed. She told Flip that she took the girls teasing jabs and jokes too personally, and that because she didn’t act lighthearted about it, they continued to make the jokes. But they were JUST JOKES, and they shouldn’t upset Flip. No. I think some of these girls were rather rude and childish themselves. There’s no reason they should have treated Flip the way they treated her sometimes. Not that they were evil or abusive, but they were not kind, and it obviously hurt Flip’s feelings, but no one cared to notice. The teachers didn’t even care. Madame Percival, whom Flip adored to the point of thinking of her like a mother, didn’t even care. Every time Flip started to think or act in a self-pitying manner, she scolded Flip. I think they were all a bit too harsh on Flip. She did need to grow up, but they were not helping. Even though Flip matured a bit in the end and learned not to be such a cry baby, I don’t buy it. I don’t think it was fair at all on Flip. The book was easy to read, when I skipped some portions of the boarding school scenes that I found boring. But it was a letdown, because there was nothing extraordinary about it, even books whose ordinariness can be appealing, because though crazy stuff may not happen, the characters experience growth, learn something, or develop a relationship, I didn’t feel that way about this book. Because I don’t feel like Flip learned a good lesson.She learned to be less whiny, but I don’t think she learned it properly, fairly, or fully (she was still a big baby about Eunice, her dad’s sort-of girlfriend—Eunice mostly just “lusted after” Flip’s father). She learned to help people, the way she helped Paul, but when she wasn’t helping Paul, she immediately lost her maturity and reverted back to that little, whiny girl again.Aside from that, I don’t feel like her experiences taught her much. Maybe I am being harsh, maybe I am not seeing something here but, though I did enjoy the book to a degree, I didn’t enjoy it like I thought I would and, honestly, I didn’t enjoy it enough.
Originally posted here.I'm so glad they decided to re-issue this one with a new cover and that I didn't have to hunt down an out of print copy. I love the new cover too, I like how the pink stands out against all that snow and how it portrays Flip and Paul taking a walk. And Both Were Young is similar to Camilla in the sense that it's a quiet sort of novel. However, there's more to look forward to in the former and I enjoyed reading it more than the latter. Even though I'm an outgoing person, I could relate to how Flip had a hard time fitting in at her Swiss boarding school. Language isn't a problem because she's fluent in French and all the girls are required to speak that. She just doesn't get along with the girls in her class and even her roommates. I love it when Flip said that she's lonely but she's never alone. I have a feeling that if I ever went to boarding school, I'd still have a hard time like Flip did especially since I've never shared a room with anyone before and I've never been athletic (which is a huge factor in Flip's school). Girls can be mean without knowing that they're doing it and I guess that's what Flip had to deal with. Good thing she finds a friend in Paul, another loner that she meets while she's out for a walk. Also, Flip finds happiness in observing the beauty in her surroundings and trying to capture that in her artwork.This is a very sweet novel and I was smiling when I finished reading it. At only 256 pages, it's a quick read that you can finish in one sitting. And Both Were Young reminded me of old school novels for girls like Little Women maybe because it's set in a different time and yet I could still feel for the characters. I was rooting for Flip right from the start and it made me happy watching her gradually adapt and become more comfortable around her classmates. She started out hating the school and counting down the days until her father can get her away from the place but eventually makes friends with the other girls and even her art teacher. I also enjoyed the setting, Switzerland seems like such a beautiful place based on Flip's descriptions. How I wish I could go there someday and maybe even see snow for the first time. There are a lot of things to like in this book: Flip's close relationship with her father, the friendship and subtle romance between Flip and Paul, the effect of the war in the characters and how some of them have tragic pasts but the book never became too heavy. I highly recommend it to YA fans, it's a nice break from all the contemporary and paranormal reads out there.
What do You think about And Both Were Young (1983)?
The last time I saw an edition of "And Both Were Young" was when I handed my copy over to a friend in high school. She liked romance novels, and I thought she should read it because it has the sentimentality of romance combined with a need for self-discovery. I never saw the book again, so thankfully it has just been released as a re-print. I bought it and revisited this tale growing up, at first with some trepidation. What if I didn't like it as much as I did at thirteen? Would it tarnish my rosy memories? But I should trust L'Engle, who really is a writer after my own heart. Have some things changed? Yes. Flip's teenage angst at the beginning is understandable, but I'm not quite as sympathetic. I no longer resent the adults when they are not as understanding and kind as they should be. But I still feel kinship to Flip's alienation, how she has trouble communicating with others and fitting in. How she wants to be like everyone else, but also herself, which in some ways isn't like everyone else.I'm looking to read "A Severed Wasp," because a grown-up Flip is supposed to make an appearance there. After the teenage me identifying so strongly with teen Flip, I'd like the adult me to see how the adult Flip turned out.
—Annie
I think this may have been the last Madeleine L'Engle book I read (for the first time) as a teenager. And for some reason it holds a sort of distinction in my head because of that fact. I, like most other readers I know who love her books, got in on the whole thing with A Wrinkle in Time, moving on to the other Murry and O'Keefe family books and then the Austin family series and so on from there. I must have been somewhere around ten or so when I first read the Time series and by the time I got through all the others and worked my way around to her standalones I was a bit older. Although one of my very favorite things about her body of young adult work is that there are so many connections between them. And while AND BOTH WERE YOUNG is probably one of the most standalone of them all, for the discerning reader there is a very lovely, very oblique reference to its main character in L'Engle's much later novel A Severed Wasp. Interestingly, I don't think I ever realized just how old this book is. Originally published in 1949, it was actually her first young adult novel. Incidentally, my copy features the old 1983 cover. But a lovely new hardback edition was just released on Tuesday and, as it is one of my very favorite of L'Engle's books, I wanted to highlight it here while I convince my local bookshop to order a copy into the store. Phillipa Hunter, better known as Flip (oh, how much I love this), never wanted to leave her father and her Connecticut home to come to a Swiss boarding school. That was her father's new "friend" Eunice's bright idea. Since her mother passed away, Flip has grown even closer to her artist father and the idea of leaving him and attending a foreign school among a host of strange other girls terrifies her. But her father is bound for China to draw and Eunice is traveling with him instead of Flip. And so Flip tries to hide her trembling and put on a brave face for her father's sake. But boarding school is just as alien and difficult as she feared. Though the girls hail from all over the globe, Flip finds it hard to fit in. Long-limbed and lacking in coordination, she watches her fellow students from the sidelines and prays for the year to be up soon. The one bright spot in the gloom is her art teacher Percy--a young woman who seems to understand Flip's solitude and need to filter her kaleidoscopic emotions through some sort of creative act. Then one day out exploring further than she ought to be above the school grounds, Flip runs into a young man named Paul. Paul lives with his father in a small cottage not far from the school. These two dispossessed young teenagers form a friendship and, in the process, find the kind of acceptance and understanding in each other that they've been searching for. Flip is the kind of foot-in-her-mouth, arms-and-legs-everywhere protagonist that I connected with instantly as a teen reader. I loved her for her haplessness and the way that she just kept on stumbling through her outer coating of awkward to a place where she could voice her thoughts and experiences so that someone else could see them and appreciate her for who she was. In my eyes, that made her admirable--that drive to keep going despite the many misconceptions and deliberate slights of those around her. That was what was so hard for me at that age, and I like to think I drew a little strength from watching her try and fail and try again and succeed. It helped that her interactions with Percy were so poignant, particularly in the wake of having lost her mother and being without her father. The other girls at the school were especially well done as well. At first you think they will be mere stereotypical characterizations, the way Flip almost expects them to be, but they each emerge from their initial roles to play an important part in Flip's development. And then there's Paul. Lovely Paul. He has long reminded me of Jeff Greene from A Solitary Blue and a kinder, less destructive Zachary Grey. Yes. You will fall in love with Paul just as much as Flip does. And the even more gratifying thing is that the story is not just about Flip's journey to self-discovery, but Paul's as well. It's not all the way he fills her needs, but how she fills his as he has an unusually dark past that he is rather successfully steadfastly refusing to deal with until Flip comes along. This is an eternally sweet and moving book. Like so many of L'Engle's books, I turn to this one when I want to be reminded that the world and the people in it can be beautiful despite the darkness.
—Angie
I personally loved this book. I felt like the character Flip was someone that I really could identify with. Flip is a teenage girl who is sent off to boarding school in Switzerland because of her nasty potential stepmother convinces her father to do so. Before she leaves, she meets a boy and in a emotional rage tells him about her feeling toward her step mother. Unbeknownst to her he is staying in a little guard tower just up the way of her new boarding school. Paul, they boy, has a very mysterious past that she has to go to great length to uncover. This is a truly incredible book and I recommend it if your looking for a mystery/romance.
—Susannah Henning
