Doin' It

Gr 9–11—Five friends who met working on their yearbook stay in one another's lives despite their diverse lifestyles and goals, and the books each focus on a different character. Doin' It and The Fake Date follow bright, athletic Kiki and stylish, strong Marnyke, respectively. Both young women struggle to balance the obligations of school, social lives, and family, relying on their own morals to make difficult decisions. Kiki must decide if she is ready to have sex with her boyfriend, while trying to land a summer job and pursuing a competitive scholarship. Marnyke works to pass English and find a date for prom while grappling with the deeper dilemma of how to respond to her mother's early release from prison. The books are written in a limited third-person narration that successfully captures each girl's point of view. The secondary characters are not as well developed, often with only physical descriptions and a few stereotypical traits. Both books also share a copy-editing problem; even casual readers will notice multiple typos in each work. That said, the smooth plotting and satisfying resolutions should keep many teens turning the pages. This series may be popular with fans of L. Divine's "Drama High" series (Kensington) or other urban fiction series that follow confident, female protagonists.—Gesse Stark-Smith, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR