NERVES OUT LOUD

Seven established women writers look back to their teenage years with fictionalized short stories describing serious traumas they experienced as adolescents. The seven stories collected here have the power to keep young readers engaged by confronting formerly taboo subjects such as rape, homosexuality, drugs, and delinquency. Told with compelling honesty and realism, each story portrays serious difficulties faced by many teens, yet most also touch on more common adolescent relationships, such as those with teachers, friends, and boys. Melanie Little describes how a 15-year-old girl escapes her rigidly controlled life as a figure skater, to end up being gang-raped while drunk at a party. M.K. Quednau and Musgrave recall their own rebellious high-school years as they began to emerge as writers. Karen Rivers recounts an experience with bulimia, and Madeline Thien and Carellin Brooks focus on home life. One watches a family disintegrate, and the other describes a girl desperately avoiding her foster father’s sexual advances. Marnie Woodrow watches a girl emerge as a lesbian. With their honest depiction of subjects holding high interest for teenage girls, these seven stories offer excellent doors into books for reluctant readers. Written with consistently high literary quality, all seven stories deserve attention from those seeking excellence in YA writing. (Fiction. YA)