I have always felt an affinity for Going's misfit characters. I loved Troy, the fat kid who didn't fit in, troubled Iggy with a good heart, and now I have a new character to add to my list of "square peg" teens trying to survive in a "round hole" world.. Liam is a spoiled rich kid whose mother is a former fashion model and father is a powerful business mogul. Liam is a screwup. To avoid further pain and embarrassment, his father decides to send him away. With some last-minute maneuvering, Liam goes to a trailer park to live with his cross-dressing uncle. Uncle/Aunt Pete is a radio disc jockey and member of a glam band. Liam struggles with questions of who he really is and who he wants to be.  If you liked Fat Kid Rules the World and Saint Iggy, give King of the Screwups at try.

 

I read Wintergirls on a day when I was home with a stomach virus. It was a strange experience to read about an eating disorder when the thought of food made me nauseous. Anderson does a fantastic job of stripping away all the exterior gloss and getting right down to the pain, loss, and attempt for control that drive Lia to the desperate life in which she is caught. She seeks to understand why she is continuing the painful path of self destruction and the need to hide it from her family. As she comes to terms with the death of her best friend Cassie, and attempts to put some sense of order into her family's splintered relationships, you feel her pain. It is a raw and searing portrait of an eating disorder.

  

Debut author Michel Bilk's The Red Blazer Girls  is a fun mystery for tweens. Set at St. Veronica's, a private girl's school in NYC, a group of girls must locate a missing ring using clues, which come in the form of puzzles. Using their knowledge of literature, geometry, history, and language, four seventh graders work to return a valuable ring to its rightful owner. The characters are delightful, the setting includes familiar landmarks such as The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and a coffee house called Perkatory. Great fun!