The Break-Up Artist

To most of Becca Williamson’s classmates, she’s just another not-especially-popular member of the Ashland High student body. But to those who reach out to her secret alter ego, she’s a ticket to romantic ruin: as the Break-Up Artist, Becca engineers couples’ downfalls for 100 bucks a pop. Siegel’s debut follows Becca into the ethical morass that has become her life, as she manipulates classmates’ relationships with fake notes to ex-girlfriends, surreptitious text messages, and more. It’s not that Becca’s against love, exactly—she just doesn’t believe these people are truly in love to begin with, and she resents a larger culture in which singles are treated like lepers and girls abandon their best friends for boys. This would all be well and good if it weren’t for Becca’s near-total moral blindness and lack of self-awareness or empathy, especially after she starts hooking up with her best friend’s boyfriend amid her other machinations. Becca learns some hard lessons, but maybe not hard enough. Even as the book ends, she is justifying herself. “I didn’t destroy young love,” she thinks. “I just sped up the inevitable.” Ages 14–up. (May)