PERFECT GIRL

Cosmopolitan aunt to the rescue! Fourteen-year-old Ruthie feels stifled by her tiny Delaware town, her frumpy and overprotective mother and the fact that her father was an unknown sperm donor. When she falls head-over-heels in love with lifelong friend Perry, she knows mom can’t help. In secret, hardly breathing, she telephones glamorous Aunt Marty, mom’s estranged sister who writes magazine love columns and is an official expert on men. Ruthie being smitten with rich Aunt Marty is at least as important as the tumultuous relationship between the adult sisters and Ruthie’s pursuit of Perry. Hogan excels at young tenderness, such as Perry spooning Ruthie’s foot, and an enchanted day they spend together in D.C. Mom gets a bum rap (caricatured confusingly as both a dowdy ’50s throwback and an intentional single mom) while heroine Marty’s high heels, manicures and diet examples (appetizer portions only) far outshine any depth that Hogan attempts. Fun, especially for readers who thrill at secret tips like “[a]lways wear silk underpants.” (Fiction. 11-13)