THE SERIOUS KISS

Fourteen-year-old Libby’s first-person narration of her trials and tribulations starts off gratingly but becomes likable two-thirds of the way through. Libby’s screwy family includes a mother more likely to say “dinneroo” than “dinner” and an older brother who hides cigarettes in his hair; worse, no one sees her, her father’s an alcoholic, and family dysfunctions go unacknowledged. Lamenting that “everything awful happen[s] to me,” Libby’s yanked out of her small town and moved to a Barstow trailer park (surprise: it’s a retirement home!) next door to an unknown woman (surprise: it’s her grandmother!). Far away from her old best friend (and co-conspirator in getting a “serious kiss” from a boy), Libby forms a new life in the tiny desert town. Dad’s alcoholism hits bottom and rehab ensues; Libby’s tone shifts, thankfully, from an overdramatic annoyedness to an open realness. The serious kiss comes in a wonderful final chapter containing a rare gift: a supremely satisfying last sentence. (Fiction. 11-14)