The Bermudez Triangle

The Bermudez Triangle
Maureen Johnson
Publisher: Razorbill
Released: October 12, 2004
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 384
Source: Bought

Lifelong best friends Nina, Avery and Mel face their first separation the summer before their senior year, when Nina attends a ten-week summer program at Stanford. But how much can happen in ten weeks?

Plenty, it seems. Nina finds herself blindsided by Steve, the quirky yet adorable ecowarrior down the hall. Too bad he lives in Oregon and she's from upstate New York. When the Stanford program ends, she has to wait 8736 hours before she can see him again. Somehow, even calculating that number doesn't comfort her.

At least she'll soon be reunited with Mel and Avery. But Nina isn't the only one whose life was turned upside down in ten weeks. While Nina was gone, Mel had her first real kiss. With Avery.

Mel knows it's love. But Avery isn't so sure. Is she really gay - or is it that everyone wants to be with Mel?

I'm pretty embarrassed to admit to you, readers, that I have not read a single book by Maureen Johnson until now. I always knew I needed to get to her, but now that I've realized what I've been missing all this time, I am truly ashamed. Not only has Maureen penned eight Young Adult novels, but she has also contributed to several anthologies and is pretty much the queen of Twitter.

Maureen is super funny on Twitter, and I was glad to see her humor translated into her writing. There were a lot of jokes and sarcasm, which worked well with the seriousness of the issues found in this novel. The Bermudez Triangle is very much a coming-of-age story in that it follows Nina, Avery, and Mel through a very pivotal time in their lives. Senior year is a huge milestone in anyone's life, and it was great to see this threesome figure it out both together and individually.

For the first time in their lives, Nina, Avery, and Mel are spending a summer apart. But it's just a summer, right? How much can happen in a summer? A lot, it turns out. Nina returns with an experience that's hard to share with her two best friends. Even harder to share is the new romantic relationship in which Avery and Mel have found themselves. The once close-knit trio now find their friendship unraveling at the seams, unable to reconnect after so much has happened since they've been apart.

The Bermudez Triangle is a great story of friendship and its evolution. Things change and people change, but that doesn't mean friendships have to end. I think this is a very important lesson in life, and this novel captures it perfectly. Each of the three girls are dealing with so much; it was refreshing to see the way they handled it despite their uncertainty and fear.

This novel has been challenged twice due to having "no moral fiber" and "homosexual themes." While it definitely has homosexual themes, I think it has more moral fiber than the majority of books I found in my high school library. Thankfully, in both situations this book was kept on the shelf with restrictions and not banned completely. I sincerely hope Maureen saw an increase in sales after these banners brought more attention to this novel because it is a very important book for LGBT and questioning teens out there.