Lost It

Publishers Weekly

Readers will be immediately drawn to this hilarious and heartfelt first novel about a girl who falls in love—and has her first sexual experience—and tries to let go of her fears. Tess Whistle lives in Idaho with paranoid parents, who "became born again" after a kitchen fire. The book begins with an account of how she loses her virginity, then flashes back to the start of junior year, when she expected to stay a virgin until she is "at least engaged." Tess has plenty of phobias, mostly of the natural world where she could be "torn to pieces by a pack of recently relocated gray wolves." Just before her whole life crumbles, Benjamin Easter transfers to her school. Tess falls intensely in love without realizing "that you can't depend on another person to provide your own balance." And there's no doubt that Tess's life is out of balance: Her best friend is building a bomb, claiming she wants to blow up a poodle, her parents run off to join a survival camp, and Tess tells Ben she is diabetic as way of explaining her "juvenile" apple juice box, then maintains the lie. Readers may be so busy laughing out loud at the eccentric characters and outrageous plotting that they may not realize how much they have grown to empathize with desperate Tess until her relationship is in crisis. Readers will fall in love with this offbeat story—and its rich lesson about living a life without guarantees. Ages 14-up. (Jan.)

Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

VOYA - Lois Parker-Hennion

Sixteen-year-old Tess Whistle lives in Idaho and is a junior in high school. Her parents are born-again Christians, and Tess believes that because she does not even have cable TV, she is much less worldly than other teens, especially her best friend, Zena. The girls dream of colleges like NYU and UCLA. When Tess first meets Ben, she is embarrassed to have a boxed apple juice so she lies and tells him that she is diabetic. As a cancer survivor, he is very understanding about her condition. But Tess's life is about to change dramatically. Zena gets sent away for blowing up the stuffed poodle that belongs to the daughter of her father's girlfriend. Then Tess's mother and later her father leave home to join a wilderness survival camp in Utah. Tess's grandmother, who has recently won the lottery, comes to stay with Tess and buys her a car. Ben and Tess get together a few times, and Tess even goes to Ben's for Thanksgiving dinner. They have sex for the first time in a sleeping bag under the canoe at his parent's lake house on a cold winter night. Later while Tess and her grandmother are driving to Utah to visit her parents at Christmastime, they get into an accident although no one is badly injured-except for the moose. A lot happens in this quirky novel, but the events seem less serious as told by Tess, who observes it all with a cynical wit. Other characters possess the same odd sense of humor and are minimally developed so it is difficult to care too much. Lighthearted and fun, the novel is full of hilarious dialogue that many teens will enjoy.

KLIATT - Holley Wiseman

Tess Whistle is a high school junior with a lot on her mind. Her parents have decided to "find themselves" in a wilderness camp, her best friend Zena Crow wants to blow up a poodle in the wake of her parents' separation, and new student Ben Easter is cute and nice. Her relationship with Ben will force Tess to learn about beginnings and endings, winning and losing. Eventually, Tess learns that sometimes to find yourself, you need to get a little lost. Kristen Tracy has written a story with familiar details for YAs: love relationships, friendships, and parental dissonance. Includes references to virginity and having sex.

School Library Journal

Gr 9 & Up - Idaho teen Tess Whistle is having one weird junior year-she, her family, and her friends are all "losing it." Her parents, born again following a serious grease fire in the kitchen, take off unexpectedly to a survival camp in the Utah desert, leaving Tess with her grandmother. Tess's best friend, Zena, reacts to her parents' marital troubles by making elaborate plans to blow up a poodle. And Tess herself, who used to be 100 percent certain that she'd wait until she was married before she had sex and is deathly afraid of the wilderness, loses her virginity out of doors with her boyfriend. This book is a great read, hilarious and poignant at the same time. Teens will laugh out loud at Tess and her frank, humorous observations about the outrageous situations in which she finds herself, but they will also empathize with her feelings of not being in control of her life. They will also be heartened by the conclusion of the novel, for even though Tess is unsure of what will happen next, she has finally come to terms with the fact that life offers no guarantees, saying, "For the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful. And ready for what comes next."-Kathleen E. Gruver, Burlington County Library, Westampton, NJ

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information