Getting Even

Keith and Jane tell the story, in alternating chapters, of the events that lead to their falling in love. Keith, living in the shadow of Steven, his popular, god-like older brother, becomes the photographer for the school yearbook. Jane, whose father was a New York radio personality who had to take a lesser job in a smaller town, is a sexy city girl who can't shake the feeling of being doomed in the boondocks. Jane thinks Keith is a ""Yahoo,'' her word for a local yokel; Keith thinks Jane is probably out of his league. A savvy yearbook editor helps Keith to see the vulnerable, even tarnished side to Steven and gives him a chance to realize his photographic potential. Jane finally comes to terms with her parents' divorce. While Keith truly grows up in the reader's eyes, gaining new maturity, Jane is the real Yahoo; her attitudes and posturing about small town life are at first irritating and later boring. And her problemslying, refusing to see her mother, wishing her father was dead, disliking almost anyone who breatheswouldn't be wrapped up so neatly in real life. (12-up)