More Than Good Enough

Trent Osceola sees himself as “half native, half white, and one hundred percent nothing.” His dad bailed out when Trent was 10, and now that he’s 17 and flunking out of the arts school his musical talent got him into, his mother dumps him back with his ex-con father on the Miccosukee reservation. Trent’s new public school reunites him with his childhood best friend Pippa, all grown up and very attractive, who gets Trent involved in making movies. But being on the Rez is complicated: Trent isn’t sure he belongs, and his father is an angry drunk. The details about life on the Miccosukee reservation—close to Miami, but a world apart—are interesting, but Chappell (Narc) piles on the difficulty, both upping the grimness quotient and reiterating it, especially when it comes to Trent’s father. When, in the last quarter of the novel, potential caretakers appear, it raises the question of where they were before, along with the suspicion that Chappell withheld them to allow things to get really bad before turning them around. Ages 13–up. Agent: Tina Wexler, ICM. (Jan.)