Because of You

Accurately drawn characters and events distinguish Walker's dynamic first novel. Misty, a teenager growing up in a small Southern town, incisively narrates the circumstances of her perpetually unstable life: a moody, unreliable father and bitter, alcoholic mother foster her low self-esteem. Seeking security and acceptance outside her family, she falls for a succession of irresponsible, unfaithful boyfriends and rebels drastically by experimenting with sex and drugs. Readers experience Misty's sincerity and giddiness as she begins new relationships and her disappointment as the boys she falls in love with leave her or fade out of her life: ``All the guys I had thought I loved were a memory.'' Although her speaking manner is youthful, Misty observes human nature and her own shortcomings with a complexity and mature weariness that suggest she has grown up too fast. No typical tale of youthful angst, this noteworthy novel is a convincing account of how the lack of love damages an impressionable child. Walker reminds us how we are shaped by people, events and intense emotions that eventually blur with time's passage. (Aug.)