Grendel's Guide to Love and War

Sensitive every-teen Tom Grendel and his widowed father live in a Virginia retirement community--his dad, an army veteran with PTSD, needs the peace and quiet. Tom is planning on a summer spent mowing lawns and communing with his grandmotherly neighbors, but then two of his classmates and their mother move in next door. Willow Rothgar, Tom's enigmatic first kiss, is an exciting addition to the neighborhood; although Willow warns Tom she won't be his "manic pixie dream girl," they nonetheless flirt, parry, and eventually hook up. Willow's brutish brother Rex and their obnoxious hipster cousin Wolf become a problem: their raucous parties drive Tom's fragile dad away, leaving Tom to figure out how to shut them up. What follows is suburban teen warfare. With help from a pair of strong supporting characters--Tom's fiery, floundering college-grad sister, Zip, and his affable Korean American best friend Ed--Tom executes wildly escalating pranks against his noxious neighbors and then extricates himself from their over-the-top counterattacks. All the while, Tom wrestles with memories of his mother, the quiet tragedies of old age that befall his neighbors, and the complexities of intimacy. An author's note identifies Tom's battle as a Beowulf update, but readers unfamiliar with the source material can still enjoy this frenetic but thoughtful contemporary novel. jessica tackett macdonald