Half My Facebook Friends Are Ferrets

Sixteen-year-old Josh Walker has several goals he’d like to accomplish before his approaching 17th birthday, including kissing a girl, getting a piercing, seeing his favorite Finnish death metal band live, and mastering Metallica’s “One” on guitar. Obstacles include his mother (who, as a result of ongoing “financial difficulties” since his father died, is always sticking Josh with odd jobs), Josh’s “on/off relationship” with his sister, his nerdy friends, and the fact that he spends most of his time in his bedroom with his ferret, Ozzy, writing heavy metal lyrics and dreaming about an electric guitar. Readers will feel as if they know Josh well through his daily cataloguing of his life in a journal; unfortunately, his entries get tedious fairly quickly, given that he has so little going on. It’s easy to sympathize with Josh’s frustrations, and his sarcastic, self-deprecating narration has its moments (“I am prostituting my soul for the Jackson,” he says of a restaurant gig. “I wish I could prostitute my body, but no one’ll take it”), but a lack of momentum makes for slow-going reading. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)