Prom Anonymous (review)

Three one-time best friends who have gone their separate ways in high school decide to reunite for the ultimate prom experience. Since Chloe, the artsy one, isn't the prom type, Jace, the athlete, and Laura, the type-A manager, take it upon themselves to get her a date. After screening potential candidates, they decide on Zach, who is known to be the experimental type, and who is unlikely to be put off by Chloe's Sylvia Plath tendencies. Then it's prep time followed by the main event, with several major and minor entanglements along the way—Jace finds out that her dreamy date has a history of mental illness, and Laura senses that her relationship of fourteen months is losing its zest while a new boy gives her the tingles. Nelson achieves a thorough exploration of the complexities of the contemporary prom qua pseudo-wedding, but his situations and characters are all a bit too ordinary to prove memorable. Laura in particular reads like a middle-aged desperate housewife, bored with the routine sex she and Mike have but unwilling to shake the status quo until she finds out he's cheating on her. It's all pretty mundane stuff, with primary and secondary characters—the gay friend who helps Chloe pick out a dress, the anti-prom partially punk dissenter, the wacky blind date—all booked from central teen casting. Jace's agoraphobic, possibly schizophrenic date breaks the mold somewhat, but Nelson avoids any potentially interesting developments by having his really severe episodes occur in the distant past, and having him come around after Jace gives him a stern talking-to about taking risks. On the plus side, the book doesn't set up any impossibly high expectations with regard to the magic and romance of the prom, and those readers who, like the characters, sit around the local Denny's plotting their evenings will feel right at home.