Luscious Love
Luscious Love
She found herself thinking about the very fibre of her character and reflected on her actions from the day before. Who am I? She stopped folding when she noticed two young girls looking around the store. She was about to ask them if they needed any help when she caught them admiring the huge poster in the front section of the store. It featured a thin, chiseled model with photoshopped smooth skin, perfectly curled hair, large breasts, and no stomach whatsoever. Mina watched, horrified, as the girls looked at their stomachs, sucked in, and tried to pose like the model.
She looked around the room at all the posters, each one showing a woman that looked like a cookie-cutter version of the last. Maybe it was the breakup, maybe it was the lack of sleep, but Mina was questioning everything.
When Mina lands her first job at Luscious Lingerie in the local mall, she is overjoyed. Now she’ll make some money to spend or to save for university, she’ll have some independence, she’ll make some friends. After trying various positions on the store’s teams, Mina settles in, feels everything is going well and then meets Lexie who has the potential to become more than just a casual friend. But little by little, Mina learns more about herself and realizes that her goals and her attitudes are gradually changing.
There are several themes explored in this short novel. Mina’s concern about her body image is one that arches across the story. Some of her insecurity is rooted from family attitudes where she is continually overshadowed by her talented siblings and constantly reminded by her mother that she is overweight. Mina’s body image concern is compounded by her working in a lingerie shop where the fashion world insists that everyone should be tall and slim if they are to be successful.
Relationships are another important theme of the story. Mina’s parents are first-generation Canadian and follow the stereotype of wanting more for their children than they, themselves, had at the same age. While Mina’s siblings are more or less content to follow the ‘party line’, Mina wants something different. She is interested in college and travel rather than the more typical careers chosen by her brother and sister. The other major relationship in the book is Mina’s queer romance with Lexie. The relationship has ups and downs, but the two young women are good support for one another, and each helps the other achieve her goals in her coming-of-age story.
A third theme outlined by author Katerina Bakolias is the fashion industry, with a look in particular at the fast fashion currently so prevalent in stores and online. Not only are young women pushed to have a certain look, but sales people also are trained to pressure them to buy more than is needed with little concern that older clothing will simply be tossed into the nearest fashion garbage bin. Mina not only gets a taste of the tactics taught to salespeople, but she also quickly learns how difficult it is to both deal with a demanding public as well as deal with confrontation and animosity among fellow staff members.
Mina learns a great deal about accepting herself as she is and standing up for what she believes. She becomes strong enough to know what is best for her at this point in her life and to listen to her own voice rather than the often random comments and advice so easily given by people around her. She learns to both give and expect respect.
Luscious Love is part of the “Real Love” series, a collection of young adult novels published by Lorimer and intended for reluctant readers.
Ann Ketcheson, a retired teacher-librarian and high school teacher of English and French, lives in Ottawa, Ontario.