In Zanesville : a novel

 by Jo Ann Beard. I'm sick of being a teenager, says the 14-year-old narrator in this moving coming-of-age novel set in the 1970s. So far the teen years of Beard's nameless heroine, an everygirl from Zanesville, Illinois, have been filled with nameless longing; she felt plenty of that as a younger child, too, but this kind involves boys and cliques and comes with an extra layer of confusion. Her family a harried, brash, mother; a temperamental big sister; and a practically nonexistent little brother struggles financially while barely coping with her father's pathetic drunkenness. Our heroine is a late bloomer, stuck being the almost inseparable sidekick to her best friend, Felicia. Then the girls find their social circle expanding, soon including the most popular kids in school. Betrayal follows, and the girls must find their way back to friendship. Beard's hilarious, awkward, hyperreal dialogue drives the narrative, as slow-building squabbles morph into tense bursts of familial bickering. The 1970s setting allows for a slower-paced coming-of-age, but Beard travels the well-worn road of budding young womanhood with a surprising freshness. --Booklist (Check Catalog)