The Wild One

Burgess’s third Brooklyn Girls contemporary (after Love and Chaos) is fluffy fun. Coco is known to her family and friends as the good girl who needs to be protected, coddled, and downright bossed around. When she catches her boyfriend cheating, she’s too afraid to confront him. Instead she resolves to do something new with her life and turn her good-girl image around. She quits the job she hates, finds work in a bar, and has no-strings sex with her hot new boss. Though the opening to this story makes Coco and her friends look wildly immature and even a little obnoxious, Burgess soon finds her voice, and the character gains depth as a young woman struggling to find her independence from well-intentioned loved ones while trying to create a place of her own in a busy, complicated, and unfair world. Coco’s growth and development may not be smooth but are mostly believable, though readers will yawn over her dragged-out refusal to realize that her fling is starting to turn into love. Nevertheless, the changes in the heroine and her life are welcome and enjoyable. (Nov.)