Love-shy

October 15, 2014
A timely exploration of the line between idiosyncrasies and mental illness featuring two Australian teenagers. Penny thinks she's got her entire life sorted: She's a standout on her high school's swim and debate teams and is the school newspaper's ace reporter. She owns her considerable ambition proudly and likes to keep things simple, gliding through life as smoothly and cleanly-without any messy peer relationships to gum up the works-as she does through the water. When she discovers a fellow student's anonymous posts on a forum for love-shy men (so anxious about interactions with women that they avoid relationships altogether), Penny senses a hot story, pursuing it with a doggedness verging on obsession. Hyperdreamy Nick's love-shyness is rooted in emotional abuse, phobias and deep-seated anxieties that nearly cripple him socially, and Penny determines to help him, Henry Higgins-style. This goes fairly well, but Nick is also unwittingly misogynistic, simultaneously idolizing and hating girls. When Penny finally calls him out on it, it's a triumphant moment. Along the way, Nick's behavior forces Penny to see that she is more isolated and friendship-craving than she'd like to admit. There is much to love about this book besides its plot; Penny's relationships with other characters add both dimension and humor.Readers will root for these appealing, realistically flawed characters to find their respective happy futures. (Fiction. 14-17)

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November 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-The most refreshing aspect of this novel is the teen protagonist, Penny, who has an overabundance of confidence, intelligence, and capabilities and seems completely unflappable. Frequently, this is also the most annoying part of the story. As a scholastic wiz-kid and great athlete, Penny stars on the school's debate team, swim team, and is an active participant in a number of other extracurricular activities. Ever focused and driven, Penny's personal best shows in her work for the school newspaper, and she'll stop at nothing for a front-page story. When she stumbles across a "Love-shy" blog post-left open and quickly abandoned on the school library's computer-Penny jumps into investigative journalism mode. Penny uncovers that "Love-shy" is Nick, a handsome fellow student. Under Nick's shy exterior an emotional crisis is festering. There is nothing subtle about Penny. She sniffs with disdain over her classmates' interest in friendship and popularity, and proudly flaunts her single-minded focus. Her ambition drives her to pry into Nick's blog post and dig through his personal life. Nick is mortified that Penny is onto him and infuriated that she won't respect his privacy. This is a view of two teens, at opposite ends of the social, emotional, and academic spectrum. Penny uncovers something about Nick and backs herself into an awkward corner as her obsession eclipses everything else. The conversations among the teen characters often seem silly and superficial. An additional purchase.-Alison Follos, formerly at North Country School, Lake Placid, NY

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2015
Grades 8-11 When she discovers Loveshyforum.com on an open library computer screen one day, Penny seizes on the idea of writing a major story for her school paper on the so-called love-shy, people with extreme social anxiety. A superachiever at her Australian high school, Penny has absolutely no social anxiety and juggles her journalism passion with an exhausting array of other rolesstar student, ace debater, musician, student-government honcho, lead swimmer. The supremely confident Penny is so full of herself and bluntly disdainful of fellow students, however, that readers will gradually see through to her insecurities, and that's when the story gains traction. Through a process of elimination, she tracks down the classmate who was posting on the forum and engineers a highly awkward encounter. Wilkinson plays Penny and love-shy Nick off each other in satisfying and surprising ways. As the alpha girl and shy boy learn from each other, Wilkinson paints insightful psychological portraits of both teens. A hard-hitting story about looking beyond surface personalities and reaching out to friends in need.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)