She Loves You, She Loves You Not

Gr 9 Up—When Alyssa's father discovers her in a compromising position with her girlfriend, the 17-year-old finds herself banished to the fabulous Colorado home of Carly, the mother she barely knows. Though Alyssa is disgusted with her father for being judgmental and homophobic, she makes some of the same morality judgments about her mother's exotic dancing and her other job as a supposed masseuse/personal trainer with clients who call at all hours. Asserting her independence, the teen lands a summer job at the Egg Drop Inn, where everyone seems to recognize her as "Carly's girl." Slowly she begins to build an extended family with the owner, Arlo; with the customers; and especially with an attractive young waitress, Finn, all the while struggling to work out her relationships with her parents. Told mainly in a first-person narrative, with somewhat intrusive second-person flashbacks explaining the past year, this soap-opera tale juggles themes of first love, coming out, friendship betrayal, homophobia, abandonment, grief, and forgiveness. While it's difficult to juggle so many balls without dropping a few, She Loves You is still an entertaining read.—Betty S. Evans, Missouri State University, Springfield