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Synopsis

This impressive novel has already received considerable advance praise for its style, sensitivity and relevance.

The narrator is Lizzy McMann, a feisty twelve-year-old who lives with her immature mother and Manny, her father (she thinks) in a fleabag Phoenix hotel. One night, Manny's sudden announcement that he wants a divorce causes mother and daughter to move to upstate New York to live with Lizzy's grandmother and grandfather-a mixed blessing.

At school, Lizzy befriends, then falls in love with Eva Singer, who is dyslexic, looks like Natalie Wood and lives right down the street. Lizzy is both excited and ashamed of these strange feelings for another girl, one who is a fashion expert and likes boys and who makes Lizzy's insides "race with a newness I don't understand . . ."

Like all girls her age, Lizzy has to deal with her first period, her first bra and her first boyfriend. But what scares her most is her love for Eva. She is also concerned with getting a new husband for Mama-especially after reading Mama's letters she has found in the attic. Then Eva gets a boyfriend and Mama's life enters what seems to be a new crisis. . . . How Lizzy comes to grips with life's strange twists and turns makes fascinating reading for adults and young readers alike.