Girl, Nearly 16, Absolute Torture (review)

In Girl, 15, Charming but Insane (BCCB 10/04), Jess finally got together romantically with her longtime friend, Fred; now she's looking forward to a summer of blissful boyfriend time—including a Fred-planned trip to a music festival—when her mother informs her that Jess, her mother, and her grandmother will all be taking a long, leisurely trip culminating with a visit to Jess' dad. Away from home, Jess succumbs to jealous fantasies and spends most of her time trying to phone and text her boyfriend and her best friend, while also hoping that this trip might finally allow her to discover the reason behind the failure of her parents' marriage. Hapless yet smartly funny, Jess is a splendid traveling companion even when she's in agonies of friend-withdrawal and parental embarrassment, and there's additional enjoyment from Jess' comradely relationship with her free-spirited grandmother, who's planning to scatter her husband's ashes in the sea in their travels. If Jess had been reading her own story, she'd have guessed as early as readers will that her father is gay, but it's still a revelation that quickly makes sense to her and that she, trendy, self-focused teen that she is, greets with warm pride (her best friend enviously texts her, "WSH MY DD WS GAY. HES BORNG AS HLL"). Readers who relished Jess' first outing will be glad to see Fred has become every bit the boyfriend Jess had hoped (even surprising her on vacation), while those who are meeting Jess for the first time will be happily swept up in her pell-mell wake.