ANOTHER DAY

Sachs (Ghosts in the Family, 1995, etc.) tells readers that it's been a bad year for Olivia, 13—her mother left, so she and her father move in with her depressed, recently widowed grandmother—and that's about the extent of the action in this tired novel about the consequences of divorce. Readers wade through nothing more than a series of conversations about how neglected Olivia feels and how her cardboard cut-out parents don't pay attention to her. Within her chronicle of pouting, sulking, and general self-pity, there's no character development, and there's no emotion in Sachs's detached narrative. The dialogue between Olivia and her peers is stilted and dated—imagine a 13-year-old boy describing a girl as "marvelous." The climax comes when Olivia conquers her fear of dogs by rescuing one she believes is neglected. Readers are supposed to believe that Olivia has grown and changed, but where's the evidence? (Fiction 10+)