THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE (YEP, THAT WOULD BE ME)

In this first offering for young adults by performance artist Liberty, a pastiche of formats is employed to create the cynical fictional memoir of a supremely angst-ridden teen during her final two years of high school in New York City. Diary entries, a scorecard of parental infractions, amusingly and creatively defined SAT vocabulary words, sarcasm-laden advice and really bad poetry are on hand. “Why is it that no one seems to understand / how hard it is for me… / to be nice?” asks Liberty, as she chronicles each perceived slight to her teenage self in fights with friends and boy troubles, and as she negotiates her relationship with her parents. Toward the end, readers will realize that despite all efforts to the contrary, Liberty has found herself enjoying a reasonably happy existence, providing some relief from her unrelenting acerbity. Whether teens will find her particular brand of bitter commentary wickedly funny or profoundly annoying depends largely on taste, but this is an undeniably authentic and original tale of adolescence. (Fiction. YA)