I Love You, Beth Cooper

I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle

At that moment, Denis realized he hadn't planned for his plan to lead to conversation. Violence, sex, either way he had a plan (both defensive). But chitchat.

So Henneman must've given you major shit.

RESPOND

"Some shit," Denis responded, with simulated indifference. "Little shit. A modicum of excreta."

I know I promised you hard-hitting, occasionally nasty reviews, but I simply cannot do that in this case, because I just really loved this book.

One of the most overused, yet often truest, slogans in the writing world is to "write what you know."  It's sort of a misleading phrase, because all too often people connect it to the old saying "I know what I like, and I like what I know." which results in many writers penning what they like rather than what they know.  In the case of I Love You, Beth Cooper it becomes difficult to determine if Larry Doyle is lacquering a thick veneer of comedy over his own uncomfortable adolescence, or whether it is that the author just knows a hell of a lot about the teen comedy film genre.

Because what you end up thinking more often than not while reading this book is that you are reading an incredibly detailed and lovingly crafted movie script.  Indeed, the book is so much like a movie it is hard to believe that Doyle didn't write it with a film version already in mind (to his credit, Larry Doyle's previous writing credits include episodes of the Simpsons, and the clever teen commentary animation. . . MTV's Daria).  Doyle is well aware of the book's influences, opening each chapter with a topical quote from dozens of teen comedies from The Breakfast Club to Clueless.

The book opens on the humid graduation ceremony of a small town high school that could have been in any John Hughes movie.  It is there that we meet our hero, the meek and sweaty valedictorian Denis ("a vertical stroke from penis") Cooverman.  Denis is not cool.  Denis is not popular.  And though Denis is smart, he could use a pretty big dose of common sense and real life experience.  He decides, mid-speech, to tell his fellow classmates that this would be the ideal time in their life to say everything they have been meaning to say, whether it is to confess their secret sexuality (a pointed comment to his flamboyant best friend Rich "Dick" Munsch) or about eating disorders or abuses.  Everything Denis says at this point makes his classmates both uncomfortable and in some cases violently vengeful.  And then Denis discloses his biggest secret with the titular confession.

Beth Cooper, the beautiful head cheerleader, has sat in front of Denis in almost every class since they were children, and has two memories of him.  One involves an open fly in math class, and the other involves his book-opening confession.

What follows is a hilarious, outrageous, often violent, mostly unbelievable series of events.  In his quest to prove himself to the girl of his dreams I Love You, Beth Cooper takes Denis through a several death threats from Beth's coke-fiend Army boyfriend, to crashing the biggest grad party ever, to a shower rendezvous in the abandoned high school.  In the end, Denis has not only gained more knowledge of Beth Cooper, but he has learned more about himself than he ever could have imagined.  

Doyle's writing is not particularly transcendent.   It is easy to read, and suits to the tone and content of the story, though, so it's difficult to find fault with.  The book taps in to Doyle's animated past by including a chapter-by-chapter depiction of Denis's devolving physical condition, as well a smattering of drawings that guide the story along.  The supporting cast of characters, particularly the is-he-or-isn't-he gay Rich and the chubby, dumb, slutty but well intentioned Treece are everything one could ask for in movie sidekicks, written down and put inside the best movie I've read all year.  

While it includes far too many pop culture references to remain culturally relevant to generations to come, I think it will have the same feeling of fun to it in twenty years as we feel by watching Pretty in Pink decades later.  The clothes are awful, but it still tells us something familiar, something true.  And so does I Love You, Beth Cooper.

**** of *****

4 out of 5