Oh, Jackie

At 15, North Wagoner keeps a photo of First Lady Jackie Kennedy tucked inside her bathing suit, and that creased magazine page keeps the spunky teenager afloat during the life-altering summer chronicled in this unexceptional first novel. North's parents jet off to Europe, leaving their daughter with her Uncle Judd and Aunt Joan at their summer home in Glass Lake, Mich. North spends her days at the country club with her cousin Dee, flirting with the boys and impatiently waiting to grow up. But grown-up problems consume North when her late-blooming body catches the eye of her uncle. His groping fingers and inappropriate gifts leave North confused and helpless; the only time she regains a sense of control is when she slips behind the wheel of a car (she even beats a boy drag racing in her uncle's Stingray). Benz strains to convey the feel of the 1960s by dutifully mentioning every song playing on the radio and every outfit that North wears. She excels in evoking Uncle Judd as a predator and Aunt Joan as a barely-there waif. But she struggles unsatisfactorily to capture the mix of embarrassment, loneliness and arousal that North experiences when her uncle touches her (mentioning the smell of Judd's English Leather aftershave lotion more than half a dozen times doesn't suffice). Still, we admire North as she negotiates this treacherous terrain, glad that she possesses the fortitude to survive. (May)