WHO SAYS I CAN'T?.

Tessa tries to emerge from her mother's shadow and hook the boy of her dreams--in an unimpressive story of tenth-grade angst. Tessa's mother is lithe, beautiful, and assertive; Tessa is blobby and apprehensive. When she decides to change her image and direct the student talent show, Tessa goes overboard and alienates everyone in the show. The boy she loves shows himself to be an egotistical bore; the boy she hates (though he admires her) turns out to be sensitive, talented, and forgiving. Predictable, pedestrian, and trite.