MY CUP RUNNETH OVER: The Life of Angelica Cookson Potts

The narrator of Whytock's diverting debut novel is a full-figured London 14-year-old with a flair for the dramatic and a penchant for good-humored self-deprecation. Angel describes herself as a "Cinderelephant," "big, walloping whale" and "heffalump." It doesn't help that her three best friends and her mother—a chic former model with a fondness for the word "dahling"—are reed thin. Angel's frequently funny musings reveal her passion for cooking, for eating and for Adorable Adam, an older boy at school who "rides a huge, throbbing motorbike." She launches a short-lived cabbage diet in hopes of turning Adam's head ("He'll choose to spend every moment with me and I'll cook him divine dinners, and he'll never wave to other girls again"). Alas, at the school Valentine disco, the boy instead asks one of Angel's best friends to dance and the devastated girl ends up in the loo devouring a plate of sausage rolls and reading a cookbook (The Return of the Naked Chef). The author wraps up her spunky novel with a satisfying if not entirely unexpected scenario, as Angel is drafted to model an evening gown in a charity fashion show and wows the crowd. For good measure, the author sprinkles her narrative with eight of Angel's recipes, written in the girl's breezy voice (e.g., "This is a very complicated recipe and I can only manage it if Flossie [the family cook] helps me"). Ages 12-up. (Sept.)