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  • Getting the Girl: A Guide to Private Investigation, Surveillance, and Cookery
  • Deborah Stevenson
Juby, Susan; Getting the Girl: A Guide to Private Investigation, Surveillance, and Cookery. HarperTeen, 2008; [352p] Library ed. ISBN 978-0-06-076527-9 $17.89 Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-06-076525-5 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R* Gr. 6–10

For a new, nerdy, and outsidery ninth-grader, Sherman’s pretty nervy, really; he’s an [End Page 78] unabashed fan of cooking (self-defense in light of his mother’s death-dealing ways in the kitchen) and he’s always ready to approach the ladies. He’s got his eye on an independent upperclass girl, Dini, who unfortunately gets snagged by a BMOC lacrosse player. That coupling may ultimately be unfortunate for more than the thwarted Sherman; Dini’s predecessor got “Defiled,” a feared social ostracism that results in a girl’s being shunned and despised by her classmates, and Sherman fears that Dini may be ripe for the same fate. To protect his crush, he decides to sleuth around and uncover the unknown agent behind Defiling, in hope of stopping the process forever, but he’s not prepared for the blend of social grief, unexpected stardom, and risk to his friends his quest brings him. Juby, author of Alice, I Think (BCCB 9/03) and other titles, again demonstrates her ability to tell a story that’s richly colored all the way to the edges with randomly vivid elements (for instance, Sherman’s very young and attractive mother runs a troupe of highly respectable burlesque dancers, so her appearances at school are celebratory occasions for teen MILF-watchers). Sherman himself is a believable blend of nerd, young horndog, and genuinely good guy, and his slightly anxious, dippy, comedic investigation provides a useful tonal foil to the truly horrifying social phenomenon of Defiling; that process, though, is subjected to some thoughtful interrogation, with a fair amount of acknowledgment that cowardly complicity is the real engine behind the cruel practice. Whether kids fancy themselves unlikely stand-up heroes or just wish there was one out there as they enter high school, they’ll relish Sherman’s endearingly dorky nobility.

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