EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN THE WORLD

Student-teacher affairs have become a staple in YA literature (Teach Me, Nelson, 2006; Boy Toy, Lyga, 2007), but Levchuk defies convention by making the relationship a symptom rather than the cause of mental and emotional distress. Short, present-tense chapters reveal 17-year-old Edna’s quirks: her absurd but lingering worry that her autistic older brother was killed by his psychiatrist, her tendency to observe and distance herself, her almost pathological fears regarding health and death and her obsession with affairs (her own, her boss’s). But Edna also possesses a peculiar wisdom and astounding self-knowledge. Even as she grapples with her mother’s lengthy hospital stay for cancer, the effects of Vietnam on many of the adults around her (it’s 1980) and her own unhealthy relationship with Mr. Howland, her guilt-ridden, unhappy ceramics teacher, she recognizes her mistakes. At the end, this awareness leads to action and Edna moves beyond the unhealthy relationship and the fears that have shackled her. An odd and unsettling but ultimately rewarding read by a debut author who is going places. (Historical fiction. 14 & up)