THE HOOKUP ARTIST

Lucas, openly gay, adores his two best friends, Sonya and Cate, and delights in setting them up with boys. He, however, has difficulty finding a steady boyfriend for himself. Enter handsome Devin, a “hottie” new to their high school. Lucas decides he’ll do his best to get Devin and Cate together, all the while fighting his own intense desire for Devin. Hoping against hope, he begins to see evidence that Devin might be gay. While the friends resolve their problems amid fights, partying and misunderstandings, Shaw never definitively resolves the central mystery of Devin’s sexual orientation. Despite the exploration of homosexuality, this effort impresses as light fiction, with the thrust of the plot revolving around who will date whom. Shaw’s writing, however, scores as above average. Many young readers will find the story funny and sweet. (Fiction. YA)