WE ARE SO CRASHING YOUR BAR MITZVAH!!

Determined to “take eighth-grade by social storm” by finally becoming a member of the elite crowd, 13-year-old Stacy Friedman leaps for the heavens and falls flat on her toches. What happens in this first-person cringe-comedy is that although Stacy and her best friend Lydia think they’ve become cooler than cool over the summer, the popular girls or Chicas don’t agree. Meanwhile, Stacy’s other buddy, Kelly, formerly a chubby duckling, has become a Chica-worthy swan, winning a coveted invitation to Eben’s fabulous bar mitzvah. Stacy, who is understandable but hard to like, decides to crash the bar mitzvah along with Lydia. In a scene that is more likely to make readers wince than laugh, the girls, though initially successful, make total fools of themselves; then they’re caught, roundly humiliated and shunned. Some personal reflection and a conversation with a wise rabbi helps Stacy learn that real friendship and kindness are more important than popularity. But her turnabout and subsequent actions feel too abrupt to be real, and while the book has the outward trappings of Judaism, it lacks the spirituality underneath. (Fiction. 12-14)