MAKING ROOM FOR KATHERINE

Katherine, cousin of 16-year-old twins Abbey and Sheldon Reilly, has come from Paris to stay with them and their little sister and widowed mom while her own mother is between jobs. Abbey not only has to cope with her ambivalence about her cousin, sophisticated beyond her 13 years and beautiful to boot; she's striving to run a small business with her best friend and to come to terms with the new man in her mother's life. Abbey surmounts all obstacles and resolves all problems in a predictable novel saddled with a tissue-thin plot, clumsy dialogue, relentless overuse of exclamation points, and (most annoying) leaden attempts at humor. Only the most simple-minded will slog through this one. (Fiction. 10-13)