GET IT WHILE IT'S HOT. OR NOT.

Hobbs (How Far Would You Have Gotten If I Hadn't Called You Back?, 1995) takes on a sheaf of hot topics in this soapy, overstuffed tale of three friends helping a fourth who has a penchant for making bad choices. When Kit announces that she's four months pregnant and has to stay in bed, Megan, Mia, and Elaine rally around. For the privilege of waiting on her passive, fretful friend, Megan cuts class, sneaks out at night, and lies to her parents, while also fending off the physical advances of her boyfriend, fixing up Mia with her older brother, writing an inflammatory article (much of it quoted) for the school newspaper on safe and unsafe sex, engaging in a one-sided debate on the availability of condoms at school, and learning that the baby's football-hero father is HIV- positive. Amid much soul-searching, Megan becomes celebrated for defiantly distributing copies of her article after it is axed, and gets Kit to the hospital when she collapses. The baby is delivered, but between her manipulative mother and boozy grandmother, her future looks bleak. Having given the father what he deserves, Hobbs parks him on the sidelines and gives Kit short shrift, too, as Megan, Mia, and Elaine float off to the prom. Some food for thought, dished out with a heavy hand. (Fiction. 12-15)