BLACK TUESDAY

Jayne Thompkins is the stereotypical type-A overachiever; with her perfect grades, athletic prowess and flawless looks, she’s on the fast-track to Harvard. In addition to managing her academics and extracurriculars, Jayne also carefully monitors her younger-boy-obsessed, binge-drinking, diabetic sister, Ellie. Their mother is a career-obsessed local TV personality who pays little mind to Ellie and lords over Jayne. Her “perfect” façade crumbles when Jayne—attending to a call from Ellie—runs a light at an intersection and kills a young girl riding in the oncoming car. When faced with the reality of her accident, Jayne falls into a deep depression, which, of course, leads to destructive behavior, in the most stereotypical sense: She falls for a handsome “bad boy”; she chops off her long blond hair for a short spiky ’do; gets tattoos and piercings; and starts partying. With its rapid pace, this offers a lot of melodrama, though not much depth. The development of Jayne is predictable—albeit only somewhat dynamic—ranging from uptight and didactic to her becoming more lenient with herself and more reasonable in her expectations. (Fiction. YA)