cover image Who Says I Can't?

Who Says I Can't?

Mary C. Ryan. Little Brown and Company, $12.95 (159pp) ISBN 978-0-316-76374-5

Tessa is a daydreamer, while her mother is a doera community leader of cultural affairs, who is willing to go all out to direct other people's lives successfully. The class punk, Alan, has been trying to get Tessa's attention, but her friends, pointing to her mother's status in the community, believe that his interest in her is tied to her mother: if Tessa (like mother, like daughter) becomes the student director of the upcoming talent show, Alan's band, Zeb and the Zombies, may have the chance to perform. Tessa takes on the directorship and gives Rodney, an athlete with brains, the chance to do a ``sensitive'' reading, while excluding Alan. She is blind to Rodney's tactics, which are basically the same as those she believed motivated Alan. By book's end, Tessa has been fired, Alan is her one true love, and Rodney is the creep he set out to be. No surprises from the author of Frankie's Run in this very formulaic teen romance. The most interesting character is Tessa's mother, who does a 180-degree turnaround in the last pages of the booka turn, by the way, that is as poignant as it is unlikely. Ages 12-up. (Dec.)