FORTY-EIGHT SHADES OF BROWN

Reading nearly 300 pages of musings and speculations from a 16-year-old may not be everyone's cup of tea, but those who share narrator Dan's dry sense of humor and intellectual bent will find some very funny—even brilliant—moments in this Australian import. The story begins with Dan eagerly testing the waters of independence while his parents are away in Geneva, Switzerland, and about to enter his senior year. Dan is thrilled to be living with his hip, university student aunt, Jacq (who is only six years older than Dan), but it takes some adjustment for him to move from his parents' "beige," well-organized home to Jacq's chaotic, blue-green abode. While staying with his aunt Jacq, Dan ponders some minor mysteries of the universe (such as why author Neville W. Cayley chooses to use precisely "forty-eight shades of brown" to describe the species of birds in his guidebook). Dan also struggles with the more mundane puzzles of doing laundry and making an edible batch of pesto. Most of the narrator's meandering thoughts end up zeroing in on Jacq's roommate Naomi, a "flaxen-haired-love-goddess," who sets Dan's hormones raging whenever she waters her basil plants. Dan's growing infatuation with Naomi and his attempts to impress her become the main focus of the novel, paving the way to a series of wittily expressed blunders. Through Dan's voice, Earls perfectly captures the obsessive, self-conscious, confused state of mind that goes along with adolescence. A vibrant rendition of growing pains. Ages 14-up. (June)