Welcome to the worst bestsellers, where we read about kidnapped horny teenagers so you don't have to.

I'm Kate.

And I'm Renata.

And for this episode, we read The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney.

Joining us to discuss this confusing work is Jenny Weber, who studied Caroline B. Cooney with Renata at Granel and now raises money so kids without the same advantages can also experience a liberal arts education in the middle of Iowa or wherever else if they want to.

Hi, Jenny.

Hi.

In college, Jenny was the co-founder of the Caroline B. Cooney Book Club, which was not a formally recognized college extracurricular. I think it would have qualified. We should

have gone for student group funding. It's true in retrospect. By the way, I was not the other

co-founder. I don't want to step on that. I was just a member. So, so Carolyn B. Cooney,

I think a lot of people, she's written a lot of books enough that you could

have a whole book club about her if you wanted to and i think um there this was kind of an

an early like y a thriller like probably one of the first things that would be really considered

y a as opposed to like children.

Like these are definitely books about teenagers, having some sexy, mysterious times.

Yeah, this was like right in the same time as early, like the R.L. Stein, the Christopher

Pike, Lois Duncan, all kind of were in the same

sort of pulpy pre-YA-YA. It was also banned. Yeah. In a number of circles anyway.

For sexual content. Frequently challenged. which is funny because now you read it

and it's like weird but it's not really like that sexy right um this is I mean this was a book

that I definitely read as a teenager I read some of the sequels at one point I was like this was a book that I definitely read as a teenager. I read some of the sequels.

At one point, I was like, this is just too ridiculous for me.

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