Synopsis
"The fast-paced, clever writing . . . will keep teens eagerly reading and sharing passages with each other to the end." — BOOKLIST
With a Mad Cow for a mother, an eccentric psychotherapist for a father, and a dweeble for an older brother, it's no wonder sixteen-year-old Janet Bandry is ready to enter the Dark Phase of her life. As this determined British teenager sees it, the DP requires dressing in black, listening to jazz when she can find the right radio station, and thinking about Deep and Meaningful Things — when she isn't thinking about boys, what color to dye her hair, or whether her nose piercing is infected. Told in diary entries with a comical dose of melodrama, PLANET JANET shares the painfully funny travails of a winning new heroine who just knows she is destined for greatness.
Publishers Weekly
In this often funny but ultimately disappointing novel, 16-year-old Janet journals about life in the "Dark Phase," in which she and her best friend, Disha, attempt to "be in touch with the real stuff. The deep pain and joy." In her quest, Janet tries yoga from a book and gets her nose pierced, but she is oblivious to the issues going on around her. The boy for whom she became a vegetarian is obviously not interested in her; the girl hanging outside her house is actually stalking her brother; and her father's having an affair with a neighbor, causing her mother a considerable amount of stress. Janet's cluelessness can be comical, such as when she and Disha fail to make the connection between the candles they are using for a spell and the smoke alarm going off in the house, or when she is outraged by her father's suggestion that she vacuum ("If he thinks I'm going to be his skivvy, he can think again"). Sheldon includes interesting details about many of the characters in the book (Janet's grandmother was a spy and her lesbian aunt is having a baby, for example). But unlike the cast of her Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, the people here mostly fail to come alive. Janet's antics are entertaining, but she herself is not particularly likable and the narrative seems derivative, rather than energized with the fresh repartee of Sheldon's previous novels. Ages 14-up. (Feb.)