Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters

In voiceover artist Zeitlin’s debut novel, Brooklynite Kelsey Finkelstein—the latest in a long line of self-obsessed protagonists who can’t see past their own problems—hopes to “make a mark” in her freshman year of high school. But from the tacky red blazer her mother forces her wear to school to getting stuck playing goalie on the JV soccer team and landing the role of a fat, middle-aged butcher in the school production of Fiddler on the Roof, nothing is going according to plan. Meanwhile, one of Kelsey’s best friends turns traitor by hooking up with a boy Kelsey has “had the world’s biggest crush [on] since approximately birth.” Kelsey’s travails are entertaining, but it’s hard not to feel like Zeitlin is playing her heroine for a buffoon (perhaps most egregiously when Kelsey decides not to listen to the song “Defying Gravity” before performing it for an audition). And while underage drinking is hardly taboo in YA novels, there’s a surprising amount of it, nearly all consequence-free, other than the chipped tooth Kelsey gets—just one more woe-is-me moment for our girl. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)