Boys, Girls & Other Hazardous Materials

December 21, 2009
Wiseman's (Queen Bees & Wannabees
) by-the-numbers YA debut introduces Charlie Healey, a spirited ninth grader who enters prestigious Harmony Falls High School, ready to leave behind the traumas and “frenemies” of middle school. But when a childhood friend, Will, as well as a girl she had a hand in humiliating, transfer to her school, the drama she was trying to escape comes flooding back into her life. Between her feisty and boy-crazy friend Sydney (“she was my friend and unconditional friendship included throwing yourself into potentially mind-blowingly stupid situations”), her crush on Will, and the lacrosse team's increasingly violent hazing traditions, Charlie has to restructure her priorities, analyze her values, and take a stand. Charlie possesses all the uncertainty and self-doubt of a typical high-school freshman, although some of the plot particulars and her first-person narrative, which is spliced with occasional IM conversations and newspaper articles, are sometimes more reminiscent of high school sitcoms than real life. Nonetheless Wiseman has created an honest story of the convoluted workings of teenage friendships and relationships. Ages 12–up.

January 1, 2010
Gr 8-11-Attempting to avoid vicious, former "frenemies" (and their influence), Charlotte Healey starts her high school career in neighboring Harmony Falls, hoping for a clean slate. Things look promising when she makes friends the first day and awkwardly reunites, after three years, with ex-best friend/boy-next-door-turned-crush Will. Unfortunately, people from Charlie's past keep turning up, like Nidhi, former target of the nasty kids at her old school. Charlie and Nidhi reconcile and score a column in the school paper on the freshman experience. Trying to find romance and their niche in the social hierarchy, Charlie and company survive the familiar highs and lows of high school and friendship in a place where traditions, both exclusionary and dangerous, reign. Charlie learns that both sexes are equally capable of cruelty, manipulation, and susceptibility to social pressure, but she's no longer one to keep quiet when the bullies and their enablers need to be taken to task. Wiseman's fiction debut has recognizable situations and archetypes, though Harmony Falls's students and authority figures sometimes come off as stock, superficial, or stereotypical. Fortunately, Charlie proves a flawed, humorous, and perceptive narrator as she matures, standing up for herself and others. There is occasional swearing, some forced dialogue (heavy on the exclamations), and a discussion-worthy ending. While high school can seem "life and death" dramatic, Wiseman reveals the nasty business of bullying and the ugly (sometimes life-threatening) turns that questing for acceptance can take."Danielle Serra, Cliffside Park Public Library, NJ"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2009
Grades 7-10 Wisemans best-selling nonfiction title for adults, Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence (2002), inspired the movie Mean Girls, but in her first novel for young adults, its the guys who behave badly. Charlie cant wait to leave her middle-school frenemies behind and start high school, where she hopes to make cool, interesting, nonevil, nonvindictive friends. Her wish is granted on her first day, when she meets smart, supportive Sydney and reconnects with Nidhi, who shared Charlies eighth-grade misery. Soon, the inseparable trio widens to include some guys, whose involvement in a disturbing hazing incident sets off a chain of moral dilemmas. Charlies narrationfilled with IMs and textssets a breezy tone and includes some occasional four-letter frankness: Chicks before Dicks, declares Sydney. Never choose a guy over a friend. But in her realistic portrayal of everyday freshman anxieties, romance, and the sometimes toolish culture of male high-school athletes, Wiseman prompts readers to consider vital questions about authentic friendship, personal responsibility, and the slippery roles of bully, bystander, and victim.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)