The Sweet, Terrible, Glorious Year I Truly, Completely Lost It

August 13, 2007
Australian picture-book author and middle-grade novelist Shanahan's first book for teens is an uproariously funny, surprisingly intense read; a savvy blend of sharp wit and weight grounds its otherwise over-the-top humor. As 14-year-old Gemma Stone explains, “In our family, when anyone starts riding the big wave of their emotions, we say they're chucking a birkett,” Birkett being the name of her older sister Debbie's last “disastrous” boyfriend. Most of the birketts are thrown by Dad and Debbie, Gemma's soon-to-be-married older sister. But now that Gemma's getting older and trying to figure out who she is and what she wants, her propensity for blowing an emotional circuit have increased exponentially—especially in matters of love. When she's cast as Miranda in her school's production of The Tempest,
along with handsome, popular Nick Lloyd as Prospero, Gemma can hardly contain her excitement, even when troublemaker Raven De Head is cast as Caliban. Shanahan goes to town with no-holds-barred caricatures. Debbie's fiancé proposes on his knee in the spice department of the supermarket (“Will you spice up my life and be my wife?”), the opening salvo in the author's sendup of brides (and grooms) who ought to be blushing. The heavier side of the story, in which Gemma realizes just how wrong her impressions of Nick and Raven are, comes close to predictability, but thoughtful characterizations of the De Heads (and gleeful views of the Lloyds) save it. An unexpectedly painful showdown ends the novel with Gemma achieving emotional clarity. Ages 12-up.