Hooked

In this debut effort, Greenman avoids allowing her story to become an issue novel, but unfortunately it comes across as more of a teen pregnancy fantasia. It begins when 17-year-old Thea falls in love with Will, a senior at their elite New York City public school. After Thea becomes pregnant, she initially plans to have an abortion, but changes her mind at the last minute. Despite her first-person narrative, Thea's motivations, along with those of most of Greenman's characters, are frequently opaque. Thea and Will move in together in a rent-controlled sublet (she's gotten into NYU in the meantime) and are given $20,000 by their parents; even after a traumatic accident turns Will and Thea against each other and forces Thea to move in with her father, there's little sense of the enormity of the path Thea has embarked upon or even her feelings toward the son she is so desperate to keep. Despite setbacks, Thea's life feels rather charmed%E2%80%94perhaps most of all when her crocheting hobby leads to a business selling $300 bikinis%E2%80%94sapping the story of authenticity. Ages 14%E2%80%93up. (Aug.)