The Ruins of California

I've been reading The Ruins of California, by Martha Sherrill. It's a story of growing up in California, with imperfect parents. It's particularly a portrait of a specific time, very striking to me because it was my time, too. The main character, Inez Ruin, has the same posters on her bedroom wall that I had--James Taylor from JT and Robert Redford from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. And she pinpoints the moment when hiphugger jeans gave way to high-rise jeans and when hippy fashion was replaced with the preppie look. Inez is just a couple of years younger than I was at the same time--she is in high school during the time I was in college. But Sherrill does a great job of capturing the details that describe the cultural landscape.