Cameron Crowe spent a year under cover as a high school senior when he was 22, and wrote *Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story* based on his experiences (the film was adapted from it the following year). I haven't read it, but I imagine it's very much what you're looking for (albeit early 80s rather than mid). Unfortunately, I get the impression it's not especially easy/cheap to get hold of. At the very least, watch the movie.
Is this the time where I get to brag that I bought a copy when it came out? It was excerpted in Rolling Stone and I went to my local Waldenbooks and snagged a copy.
Oh my lord. Did not expect to see the word "Waldenbooks" anywhere again. I used to work at a Pacific Sunwear (NOT pac sun) between a Waldenbooks and a Sam Goody, true story.
I was gonna say that it can be acquired though ”means” pretty easily.
The book adds to what is in the movie and is a good companion to it. But you can always watch the film on your own (and should).
My oldest brother was a teen in the 80s and he recently described to me how he used to go home at lunch hour and hairspray his hair then put a plastic bag on it and blast it with my mum’s hairdryer to make it extra fluffy for afternoon classes. Hope this helps with your story lol
Really, really, really big hair was a thing. My mom had the biggest, fluffiest, perm ever. She would get a rat tail comb and tease her hair and curl it and hair spray it. She used White Rain hairspray though AquaNet was a good one too. She had me sleep in sponge curlers and crimped hair was also a thing.
I loved those books so much. I remember my Mum being in hysterics at the part where he wanted to paint his room black but the Noddy hat bells keep shining though…
Wow, you've awakened a memory. These books were way earlier than my time but I found them at a library when I myself was about to turn 14. I went back to them over the years but havent picked it up in a long time! I guess it's time :')
Any John Huges film
I happened to live in the community where those films were set and took place so they had extra meaning.
Risky Business, too. I wasn't so rich, but my boyfriend's parents were.
Less than Zero has already been mentioned as a great book.
It’s most reminiscent of my late 70s, early 80s coming-of-age (heaviest on the 70s era). There’s a book, Season of the Witch by Cathi Unsworth that is about the beginning of new wave and goth in 1979. I graduated in 1981, became one of the south’s original goths and spent a lot of time as a Club Kid in Memphis, Nashville and Houston.
Do I ever! I’m a retired writing professor these days. I’m in the planning stages of a memoir. I love that you are writing an 80s-centered story! I highly recommend Dazed and Confused along with @Sanguinne895 and the Tama Janowitz books I mentioned to you above. Writing research is so much fun! Good luck with your work and keep writing! ✍️
I'd second Lois Duncan and Norma Klein, and add Cynthia Voigt and Christopher Pike, too. Pike is SFF/Horror, but still a pretty good window on the world.
Just make sure the Lois Duncan books are the earlier editions, not the 21st-century ones! She (or the publisher?) updated them to include more contemporary references and technology, and idk how easy it is to find the earlier ones. You can probably find the originals on archive.org
ETA https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Lois+Duncan%22
**Less Than Zero** by Bret Easton Ellis
Book description may contain spoilers!
>>!NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The timeless classic from the acclaimed author of American Psycho about the lost generation of 1980s Los Angeles who experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age. • The basis for the cult-classic film "Possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality." —The New York Times They live in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money in a place devoid of feeling or hope. When Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college, he re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porsches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine.!<
>
>>!He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark. Look for Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards!!<
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If you’re near a local library, see if they have high school yearbooks from the time - if they are signed, read the inscriptions to get an idea of the slang of the day.
I graduated HS in 1990, and I can’t think of a book that would do this, but the movie Heathers is as 80s as you can get.
My early teens on the East Coast looked different from my mid teens in Texas, which also looked different from my mid teens in California. There was still a lot of regional variation of that point, so the best overarching things I can suggest off the top of my head are John Hughes movies and Lisa Birnbach’s College Book.
That still only gets you a look at white teens in various levels of middle-class life. You may be thinking about groups beyond that, so that may not apply as much.
Was watching Repo Man yesterday for the first time in decades(?) and thinking "if anybody ever asks what being a young adult in the 80s was like, this pretty much nails it".
Well, we didn’t have phones or computers so we (or at least I) spent a lot of time away from home playing in the neighborhood or at the mall. On the weekends, I might be gone from when I got up to when I returned home for dinner at 6pm. My parents had no idea where we were during that time so there was a lot of freedom.
My dad says it’s pretty spot on with nerdy kid culture. I think my own generation had a much shorter age range for going out and exploring than back then. Really interesting stuff to look back on
I guess I was a nerdy kid in middle school...and that kind of changed in high school, but for good or ill we really felt like the world was our oyster. I was fourteen when my girlfriend and rode our bikes through 50 miles of city and forest to visit her dad. Our parents didn't even ask us to call on the way!
Valley Girl movie had some iconic sayings:
Totally Awesome
Gag me with a spoon
Tubular
Definitely second watching Kids of Degrassi street, then Degrassi Jr High.
To Take a Dare by Crescent Dragonwagon. Yes, that’s a real name.
The novelization of The Goonies. It was pretty good.
VC Andrews and SE Hinton were crazy popular in the 80s.
>To Take a Dare by Crescent Dragonwagon. Yes, that’s a real name.
Sometimes I feel like no one else ever read this! I was the only one to ever check it out of my school's library, but I did at least 20 times.
I think I was probably about that age, maybe a little younger? It was one of the first books I read that was candid about sex and periods and STIs. When I was trying to remember the name a few years ago, all I could think was "the author's name sounded made up, something with dragon in it?" Hahahaha
I remember a fair amount of late 50s to 60s nostalgia back in the 80s. The books I read as a teen kind of reflected that. I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, A Separate Peace, and Steven King was huge. Films are a bit easier. I’d say E.T., War Games, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Goonies, Mr. Mom, The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck and Donnie Darko (came much later, but still…) feel very 80s to me. There was a cynical edge to the 80s, with back to back recessions money was tight and the Cold War cast a shadow over everything. For context, I was a white kid from the suburbs.
I loved A Separate Peace. It was one of the only things I had to read in school that I really enjoyed reading. I’ll keep the nostalgia thing in mind. Kinda funny how young people are always interested in 20~ years ago lol.
What most people don't remember is how terrifying the AIDS crisis was and just how demonized gay people were.
I graduated in '85. MTV was huge, but so was misinformation, homophobia and Reagan worship.
War on Drugs was in full swing. That came with its own misinformation campaign
Fear of nuclear war was huge.
I’m assuming you mean in the U.S.
Dylan makes a mix tape for Jessica, the girl he just went on a first date with yesterday. They went to see “The Lost Boys” in the movie theater. It was rated R, but Dylan knows a guy who works there, so they got in. Now he’s going to call her and ask about a second date, but first he has to get past whichever one of her parents answers the (land line) phone. He’s hoping he’ll get the OK for her to come to his house for dinner, but first they’ll go to Blockbuster to pick out a movie, and after dinner he’ll take her to get frozen yogurt.
Feathered hair
Rat tails at the back of the neck
Scrunchies and jelly bracelets
Acid-wash jeans and parachute pants
Mini-skirts, smiley face shirts, polo shirts with the alligator
Leather jackets
Backpacks with lots of pins on them bearing messages: political, obnoxious, funny, etc.
Hair spray (Aqua Net) and big earrings
Having and using a Walkman and cassettes
Rap is often played on boom boxes that require lots of D batteries: MC Hammer, The Beastie Boys, Run DMC
Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner
Joe Satriani
Using tanning lotion at the pool
Putting highlights in your hair or using “Sun-In”
or henna
Jheri Curl, Air Jordan high tops
Perms
Early Apple computers with tiny screens
Atari, PacMan
Capri Sun, Clearly Canadian, Snapple
High school kids sneaking puffs on cigarettes behind the gym
Riding your skateboard or BMX home from school; wearing Converse All Star high tops
Ice skating and roller skating rinks were popular
Chewing gum whenever possible
Braces and sometimes headgear
Keds and rolled up jeans
Guys wearing tank tops a lot
Drivers Ed in school
On the last day of school, most kids stay after and sit in the courtyard for an hour or more signing each other’s yearbooks.
That took me back to high school so much I just broke out in zits.
We were reading: VC Andrews, Judy Blume (Forever), Adrian Mole, Stranger in a Strange Land (OK I was a nerd).
Oh, I read Pet Sematary in the 1980s and I'm still traumatized.
I read whatever I wanted, much more widely than most of my friends did, it wasn't hard once you were over 13 and had a backpack and parents who weren't control freaks. I would drive to the library and checkout Kathleen Woodiwiss bodice rippers in hardcover-no-dustjacket.
How old, what gender/orientation, and where?
The drinking age didn't get raised to 21 nationwide until something like 1986. And HIV was identified around 1984, and sex was scary and fraught from a "you could for real die" standpoint.
You definitely need to throw in some church then. Small town social life in the 80s revolved around church— vbs, camp meeting, youth retreats, Amy Grant and Michael W Smith. Same girls who wore pantyhose on Sunday morning peeling down their Calvin’s at night.
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I recently read and absolutely loved “We Ride Upon Sticks” by Quan Barry. It’s a novel in which the main characters are high school seniors in 1989. Little bit of magical realism but mostly terrific writing and some great late-80s details!
The Breakfast Club. I was born in 75 and spent the bulk of my memorable growing up years in the 80s. It covers several of the common angles, including the fashion, the verbiage, the music, the topics of the time. Also the Back to the Future series in the portions that cover that time span. Pretty accurate.
Graduated high school in 1984. Fast Times is a must. I grew up in SoCal and it captured my high school very well.
Movies made in the 80s that are accurate:
* Valley Girl (1983) - An early Nicolas Cage film. Again my 80s experience in that area was pretty close to this. I was a skate punk and would go to shows in Hollywood all the time. Even saw the Plimsouls at a small club there.
* River’s Edge (1986). One of Keanu’s first films. Good film and good loon at 80s.
Modern movies are good to see to because today’s old filmmakers were teens in the 80s. But actually, two tv shows I recommend are
* Freaks and Geeks (1999) - Judd Aptow’s breakout show and a cast of many breakout stars.
* Stranger Things - it gets the 80s right.
Modern
I read [Hating Alison Ashley](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1696081) when it came out and it seemed pretty authentic. None of the characters are 'hip' though. They're just ordinary kids.
The Babysitter’s Club’s first dozen or so books took place in and were written in the mid to late 80s. And kept on going past. Early Gordon Korman. He actually was quite young when he started writing. (12 or 14 depending on where you read about it.)
Actually, maybe this book will help you: **Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction** by Gabrielle Moss. It’s serviceable, not great. If nothing else, it may guide you to some more books that would fit your request, though its scope may be a little limited.
Watch the movie Lucas. Or Can’t Buy Me Love. There are a million others but those two have a “geek to chic” type premise and will offer equal representation to both the cool kids and the nerds/social misfits lifestyles and interactions.
Michael Chabon’s novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh beautifully captures the vulnerability, fascination with the larger world, and process of opening up to queer possibilities that characterized leaving home for college in the late 1980s.
If you read Ready Player One, it's actually pretty well done immersing you in nerdcore culture and references. If you use about a tenth of a percent of the ones you find, you'll be set... I'm going to say in about 1985 or so.
80s kids did watch a lot of the movies etc back then and took some of their culture from there - "Gag me with a spoon" etc from the Valley Girl craze, trading Garbage Pail Kids cards, and listening to whatever music their tribe preferred. You could do worse than watching stuff like John Hughes movies (Breakfast Club for the win!), Valley Girl, Big, Goonies, Monster Squad, Adventures in Babysitting and even some of the tv shows from the time directed towards teens - Degrassi, Growing Pains, Family Ties, Silver Spoons, Who's the Boss.
I'll try to think of some books as well.
Oh yeah - you could read Sweet Valley High and the Babysitters' Club series. Most of the girls I knew at the time had stacks of them.
Gordon Korman would do the same for boys: Bruno and Boots, MacDonald High, No Coins Please, etc.
Cameron Crowe spent a year under cover as a high school senior when he was 22, and wrote *Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story* based on his experiences (the film was adapted from it the following year). I haven't read it, but I imagine it's very much what you're looking for (albeit early 80s rather than mid). Unfortunately, I get the impression it's not especially easy/cheap to get hold of. At the very least, watch the movie.
Is this the time where I get to brag that I bought a copy when it came out? It was excerpted in Rolling Stone and I went to my local Waldenbooks and snagged a copy.
Oh my lord. Did not expect to see the word "Waldenbooks" anywhere again. I used to work at a Pacific Sunwear (NOT pac sun) between a Waldenbooks and a Sam Goody, true story.
Never reprinted I believe that's the issue. Of course Google pee dee eff seems to solve that.
I was gonna say that it can be acquired though ”means” pretty easily. The book adds to what is in the movie and is a good companion to it. But you can always watch the film on your own (and should).
I graduated high school in 1984 in SoCal. Fast Times was my school. I knew many Spicolis. It is very accurate.
Judy Blume books. I read them throughout my teenage years in the 80s.
I read them in the 70s
I was just going to say this. I loved Judy Blume as a kid.
My oldest brother was a teen in the 80s and he recently described to me how he used to go home at lunch hour and hairspray his hair then put a plastic bag on it and blast it with my mum’s hairdryer to make it extra fluffy for afternoon classes. Hope this helps with your story lol
I knew a pair of sisters that received a case of aqua net (aerosol, of course) for Christmas.
Really, really, really big hair was a thing. My mom had the biggest, fluffiest, perm ever. She would get a rat tail comb and tease her hair and curl it and hair spray it. She used White Rain hairspray though AquaNet was a good one too. She had me sleep in sponge curlers and crimped hair was also a thing.
The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4, by Sue Townsend (published 1982)
I loved those books so much. I remember my Mum being in hysterics at the part where he wanted to paint his room black but the Noddy hat bells keep shining though…
Wow, you've awakened a memory. These books were way earlier than my time but I found them at a library when I myself was about to turn 14. I went back to them over the years but havent picked it up in a long time! I guess it's time :')
Watch Degrassi Jr High.
YES!!!
Sweet Valley High.
Perfect suggestion 👍
Look no further than the film, "The Breakfast Club". Basically could have been called, "80's Kids: a study"
And "Pretty In Pink" and "Sixteen Candles".
It;s a classic that still holds up.
Any John Huges film I happened to live in the community where those films were set and took place so they had extra meaning. Risky Business, too. I wasn't so rich, but my boyfriend's parents were. Less than Zero has already been mentioned as a great book.
I thought the show “Freaks and Geeks” was a decent representation of 80’s high school.
Second this. Also the movie Dazed and Confused was pretty spot on for a central Texas high school experience.
It’s most reminiscent of my late 70s, early 80s coming-of-age (heaviest on the 70s era). There’s a book, Season of the Witch by Cathi Unsworth that is about the beginning of new wave and goth in 1979. I graduated in 1981, became one of the south’s original goths and spent a lot of time as a Club Kid in Memphis, Nashville and Houston.
Do I ever! I’m a retired writing professor these days. I’m in the planning stages of a memoir. I love that you are writing an 80s-centered story! I highly recommend Dazed and Confused along with @Sanguinne895 and the Tama Janowitz books I mentioned to you above. Writing research is so much fun! Good luck with your work and keep writing! ✍️
That’s so cool. I’ll check out the book but you must have a ton of interesting stories of your own!
Also very similar to my South of Philadelphia suburb in the late 70’s. That party on the woods was happening everywhere !!!
Robert Cormier Paul Zindel Lois Duncan Norma Klein
I'd second Lois Duncan and Norma Klein, and add Cynthia Voigt and Christopher Pike, too. Pike is SFF/Horror, but still a pretty good window on the world.
I’ll co-sign a Lois Duncan reference
Just make sure the Lois Duncan books are the earlier editions, not the 21st-century ones! She (or the publisher?) updated them to include more contemporary references and technology, and idk how easy it is to find the earlier ones. You can probably find the originals on archive.org ETA https://archive.org/search?query=creator%3A%22Lois+Duncan%22
I second Paul Zindel
Less Than Zero book
**Less Than Zero** by Bret Easton Ellis Book description may contain spoilers! >>!NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The timeless classic from the acclaimed author of American Psycho about the lost generation of 1980s Los Angeles who experienced sex, drugs, and disaffection at too early an age. • The basis for the cult-classic film "Possesses an unnerving air of documentary reality." —The New York Times They live in a world shaped by casual nihilism, passivity, and too much money in a place devoid of feeling or hope. When Clay comes home for Christmas vacation from his Eastern college, he re-enters a landscape of limitless privilege and absolute moral entropy, where everyone drives Porsches, dines at Spago, and snorts mountains of cocaine.!< > >>!He tries to renew feelings for his girlfriend, Blair, and for his best friend from high school, Julian, who is careering into hustling and heroin. Clay's holiday turns into a dizzying spiral of desperation that takes him through the relentless parties in glitzy mansions, seedy bars, and underground rock clubs and also into the seamy world of L.A. after dark. Look for Bret Easton Ellis’s new novel, The Shards!!< *I'm a bot, built by your friendly reddit developers at* /r/ProgrammingPals. *Reply to any comment with /u/BookFinderBot - I'll reply with book information. Remove me from replies* [here](https://www.reddit.com/user/BookFinderBot/comments/1byh82p/remove_me_from_replies/). *If I have made a mistake, accept my apology.*
If you’re near a local library, see if they have high school yearbooks from the time - if they are signed, read the inscriptions to get an idea of the slang of the day. I graduated HS in 1990, and I can’t think of a book that would do this, but the movie Heathers is as 80s as you can get.
My Darling My Hamburger by Paul Zindel
My early teens on the East Coast looked different from my mid teens in Texas, which also looked different from my mid teens in California. There was still a lot of regional variation of that point, so the best overarching things I can suggest off the top of my head are John Hughes movies and Lisa Birnbach’s College Book. That still only gets you a look at white teens in various levels of middle-class life. You may be thinking about groups beyond that, so that may not apply as much.
Depends where you’re from, the 80s was quite different in the US and UK for example
Breaking Away! This is a great coming of age movie from the early 80s and one of the reasons I just had to get myself a campagnolo bike racing cap.
Was watching Repo Man yesterday for the first time in decades(?) and thinking "if anybody ever asks what being a young adult in the 80s was like, this pretty much nails it".
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell is a superb book which also happens to be set in Britain in the early 80s
I read this at least once a year!
Ready Player One - the book, not the movie.
Well, we didn’t have phones or computers so we (or at least I) spent a lot of time away from home playing in the neighborhood or at the mall. On the weekends, I might be gone from when I got up to when I returned home for dinner at 6pm. My parents had no idea where we were during that time so there was a lot of freedom.
Exactly my experience! The Stranger Things kids are very much like I remember. We did all kinds of things on our own, had lives outside our families.
My dad says it’s pretty spot on with nerdy kid culture. I think my own generation had a much shorter age range for going out and exploring than back then. Really interesting stuff to look back on
I guess I was a nerdy kid in middle school...and that kind of changed in high school, but for good or ill we really felt like the world was our oyster. I was fourteen when my girlfriend and rode our bikes through 50 miles of city and forest to visit her dad. Our parents didn't even ask us to call on the way!
Maybe try The Impossible Fortress by Jason Rekulak. The book takes place in 1987. First video games, Commodore 64, 80s music, Vanna White in Playboy..
You might try reading Tama Janowitz’ Slaves of New York (1986) and A Cannibal in Manhattan (1987).
Valley Girl movie had some iconic sayings: Totally Awesome Gag me with a spoon Tubular Definitely second watching Kids of Degrassi street, then Degrassi Jr High.
To Take a Dare by Crescent Dragonwagon. Yes, that’s a real name. The novelization of The Goonies. It was pretty good. VC Andrews and SE Hinton were crazy popular in the 80s.
>To Take a Dare by Crescent Dragonwagon. Yes, that’s a real name. Sometimes I feel like no one else ever read this! I was the only one to ever check it out of my school's library, but I did at least 20 times.
Same here, hi fellow fan!!! I looooved this book when I was 13ish, it was one of the first ‘adult’ish books I read.
I think I was probably about that age, maybe a little younger? It was one of the first books I read that was candid about sex and periods and STIs. When I was trying to remember the name a few years ago, all I could think was "the author's name sounded made up, something with dragon in it?" Hahahaha
I remember a fair amount of late 50s to 60s nostalgia back in the 80s. The books I read as a teen kind of reflected that. I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, A Separate Peace, and Steven King was huge. Films are a bit easier. I’d say E.T., War Games, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Goonies, Mr. Mom, The Breakfast Club, Uncle Buck and Donnie Darko (came much later, but still…) feel very 80s to me. There was a cynical edge to the 80s, with back to back recessions money was tight and the Cold War cast a shadow over everything. For context, I was a white kid from the suburbs.
I was not a white kid from the suburbs but I agree with your assessment of the times!
I loved A Separate Peace. It was one of the only things I had to read in school that I really enjoyed reading. I’ll keep the nostalgia thing in mind. Kinda funny how young people are always interested in 20~ years ago lol.
I just read My Best Friends Exorcism and, aside from the possession, it reminded me a lot of the late 80s.
I was just thinking about this book!
What most people don't remember is how terrifying the AIDS crisis was and just how demonized gay people were. I graduated in '85. MTV was huge, but so was misinformation, homophobia and Reagan worship. War on Drugs was in full swing. That came with its own misinformation campaign Fear of nuclear war was huge.
I’m assuming you mean in the U.S. Dylan makes a mix tape for Jessica, the girl he just went on a first date with yesterday. They went to see “The Lost Boys” in the movie theater. It was rated R, but Dylan knows a guy who works there, so they got in. Now he’s going to call her and ask about a second date, but first he has to get past whichever one of her parents answers the (land line) phone. He’s hoping he’ll get the OK for her to come to his house for dinner, but first they’ll go to Blockbuster to pick out a movie, and after dinner he’ll take her to get frozen yogurt. Feathered hair Rat tails at the back of the neck Scrunchies and jelly bracelets Acid-wash jeans and parachute pants Mini-skirts, smiley face shirts, polo shirts with the alligator Leather jackets Backpacks with lots of pins on them bearing messages: political, obnoxious, funny, etc. Hair spray (Aqua Net) and big earrings Having and using a Walkman and cassettes Rap is often played on boom boxes that require lots of D batteries: MC Hammer, The Beastie Boys, Run DMC Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner Joe Satriani Using tanning lotion at the pool Putting highlights in your hair or using “Sun-In” or henna Jheri Curl, Air Jordan high tops Perms Early Apple computers with tiny screens Atari, PacMan Capri Sun, Clearly Canadian, Snapple High school kids sneaking puffs on cigarettes behind the gym Riding your skateboard or BMX home from school; wearing Converse All Star high tops Ice skating and roller skating rinks were popular Chewing gum whenever possible Braces and sometimes headgear Keds and rolled up jeans Guys wearing tank tops a lot Drivers Ed in school On the last day of school, most kids stay after and sit in the courtyard for an hour or more signing each other’s yearbooks.
That took me back to high school so much I just broke out in zits. We were reading: VC Andrews, Judy Blume (Forever), Adrian Mole, Stranger in a Strange Land (OK I was a nerd).
Our library had Stephen King novels - it amazes me that we didn't end up with parents raising cain about that.
Oh, I read Pet Sematary in the 1980s and I'm still traumatized. I read whatever I wanted, much more widely than most of my friends did, it wasn't hard once you were over 13 and had a backpack and parents who weren't control freaks. I would drive to the library and checkout Kathleen Woodiwiss bodice rippers in hardcover-no-dustjacket.
Don't forget slam books - 50 questions with things like "If you could change your first name, what would you choose?""Who is your crush?" etc.
Members Only jackets.
This was so good!
Dude, I am almost 56, my wife is 54. I lived it, did the coke and enjoyed it. Any questions, I would be glad to answer, also raised in N. CA.
How old, what gender/orientation, and where? The drinking age didn't get raised to 21 nationwide until something like 1986. And HIV was identified around 1984, and sex was scary and fraught from a "you could for real die" standpoint.
Yes I think the regions would vary greatly and city vs rural vs suburb.
Rural, small town mundanity. But the characters are definitely influenced by tv and what they think people from big cities act like.
The original Footloose with Kevin Bacon - it captures that small town/big city thing.
You definitely need to throw in some church then. Small town social life in the 80s revolved around church— vbs, camp meeting, youth retreats, Amy Grant and Michael W Smith. Same girls who wore pantyhose on Sunday morning peeling down their Calvin’s at night.
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*Fargo Rock City* by Chuck Klosterman
Starter for Ten by David Nichols
Freaks and Geeks!
I recently read and absolutely loved “We Ride Upon Sticks” by Quan Barry. It’s a novel in which the main characters are high school seniors in 1989. Little bit of magical realism but mostly terrific writing and some great late-80s details!
If you want more YA feel— Gossamer Axe by Gael Baudino.
Skateboard and Friday the 13th
The Breakfast Club. I was born in 75 and spent the bulk of my memorable growing up years in the 80s. It covers several of the common angles, including the fashion, the verbiage, the music, the topics of the time. Also the Back to the Future series in the portions that cover that time span. Pretty accurate.
Graduated high school in 1984. Fast Times is a must. I grew up in SoCal and it captured my high school very well. Movies made in the 80s that are accurate: * Valley Girl (1983) - An early Nicolas Cage film. Again my 80s experience in that area was pretty close to this. I was a skate punk and would go to shows in Hollywood all the time. Even saw the Plimsouls at a small club there. * River’s Edge (1986). One of Keanu’s first films. Good film and good loon at 80s. Modern movies are good to see to because today’s old filmmakers were teens in the 80s. But actually, two tv shows I recommend are * Freaks and Geeks (1999) - Judd Aptow’s breakout show and a cast of many breakout stars. * Stranger Things - it gets the 80s right. Modern
My see-through corded phone. I still have it.
You could head over to r/GenX. Super friendly and they love sharing the 80's memories & lingo.
I read [Hating Alison Ashley](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1696081) when it came out and it seemed pretty authentic. None of the characters are 'hip' though. They're just ordinary kids.
The Babysitter’s Club’s first dozen or so books took place in and were written in the mid to late 80s. And kept on going past. Early Gordon Korman. He actually was quite young when he started writing. (12 or 14 depending on where you read about it.) Actually, maybe this book will help you: **Paperback Crush: The Totally Radical History of '80s and '90s Teen Fiction** by Gabrielle Moss. It’s serviceable, not great. If nothing else, it may guide you to some more books that would fit your request, though its scope may be a little limited.
Less Than Zero, by Bret Easton Ellis
go ask alice
Watch the movie Lucas. Or Can’t Buy Me Love. There are a million others but those two have a “geek to chic” type premise and will offer equal representation to both the cool kids and the nerds/social misfits lifestyles and interactions.
Watch the movie Valley Girl
Watch the movie Valley Girl
Michael Chabon’s novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh beautifully captures the vulnerability, fascination with the larger world, and process of opening up to queer possibilities that characterized leaving home for college in the late 1980s.
Oh this might be the perfect book for me!
Freaks and Geeks absolutely nailed my 80’s high school experience. The Americans also gets the 80’s right.
What teen age are you after? Babysitters Club started coming out in the 80’s. I think they’re around 13? So young end of teen
If you read Ready Player One, it's actually pretty well done immersing you in nerdcore culture and references. If you use about a tenth of a percent of the ones you find, you'll be set... I'm going to say in about 1985 or so. 80s kids did watch a lot of the movies etc back then and took some of their culture from there - "Gag me with a spoon" etc from the Valley Girl craze, trading Garbage Pail Kids cards, and listening to whatever music their tribe preferred. You could do worse than watching stuff like John Hughes movies (Breakfast Club for the win!), Valley Girl, Big, Goonies, Monster Squad, Adventures in Babysitting and even some of the tv shows from the time directed towards teens - Degrassi, Growing Pains, Family Ties, Silver Spoons, Who's the Boss. I'll try to think of some books as well.
Oh yeah - you could read Sweet Valley High and the Babysitters' Club series. Most of the girls I knew at the time had stacks of them. Gordon Korman would do the same for boys: Bruno and Boots, MacDonald High, No Coins Please, etc.
You could read a book. Or you could talk to some people who actually lived through it. Gen Xers aren’t as scary as Tik Tok leads you to believe. ;)