Readers will instantly relate to funny, honest 15-year-old Georgia. "I like to think of myself as a brilliant creative person, but sometimes I just feel like a sad lonely girl with a big bum." Lowry (Guitar Highway Rose
) covers familiar teen angst territory, from Georgia's tension with her single mom to a seemingly unrequited crush, but she handles the topics tenderly and realistically. Georgia's infatuated with the lead singer for Natural Affinity, and takes a string of bad jobs so she can fly to one of the band's concerts (one job comes to a sudden end when she angrily hits her manager with a loaf of bread). But when she starts working at a grocery store, she falls for a cute clerk who reads her his poem about toilet paper. Meanwhile tension with her mother ebbs and flows, but gradually comes to a head when Georgia learns a secret about her long dead father. Throughout, she writes lists in her diary, full of funny things such as "10 things you can do with a sausage besides eating it" and small heartbreaks (on the list "Ways in which I am like
my mother" she writes: "We both miss the same man"). Ultimately, this is a well-executed story, with a vivid narrator sure to win readers' hearts. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)
