Liza's Blue Moon

Liza, the 13-year-old narrator of this debut novel, is having a tumultuous year. Her mother withdraws into her room for hours on end, ostensibly to write in her journal; her own grandmother thinks that Liza is ``just plain vanilla'' while her seemingly perfect younger sister, Holly, has ``personality.'' Liza catches sight of her father making love with the woman next door; Liza's favorite teacher accuses her of plagiarism. She gets a boyfriend, but her best friend, Chloe, is about to move away. Then it emerges that Mom has been writing a novel, and has sold it, too; after that, Holly dies in a flash flood. Stevens capably builds characters and her observations about adolescent life are on the mark, but she doesn't sustain the impact of any of the events she visits upon her heroine. Even Liza's grief for Holly, whose death occurs in the last 20 pages, gets upstaged by concern for Chloe, whose parents are divorcing. There are many tender moments here, but little to bind them. Ages 10-up. (Mar.)