Let Me Tell You Everything: Memoirs of a Lovesick Intellectual

Readers may start out feeling troubled about the conflicting ways in which Brogan presents herself. She believes herself a feminist, and an intellectual. Then, ``On the map between real bow-wow ugly and drop-dead-your-life-is-made gorgeous, I'm just middle of the road `cute.' Let me just say: I'm grateful.'' Her next utterance is a crack about another girl, with ``no chin'' and ``short legs.'' So even though she is a serious girl, with worldly aims and aspirations, she's hard to take seriously. When she falls in love with Mr. Price, her social studies teacher (and volunteers to work with senior citizens to prove how socially conscious she is), Brogan begins to take on the larger questions of relationships between men and women, and she becomes a more palatable character. From her parents' ruined marriage to Mr. Price's platonic concern for a beautiful classmate, Brogan relates her discoveries to readers in a snappy first-person narration thatif laden with teenage angstis irresistible. Ages 12-up. (May)