This wry account of adolescent same-sex stirrings avoids the flamboyant drag queens, messy crystal meth addiction and suicidal moments of its predecessor, The Tragedy of Miss Geneva Flowers
(though it does share that story's optimistic ending), focusing instead on teen angst that's more hormonal than melodramatic. Eleven-year-old Andy, the novel's precocious narrator, enters sixth grade at his buttoned-down Catholic school in St. Paul, Minn., aching with bottled-up desire—specifically for star athlete Mark—even though the captain of the basketball team is apparently courting the prettiest girl in the school. At the same time, because he's still closeted, Andy is increasingly flustered by his friendship with school "faggot" James and tries to distance himself from his obvious but persistent best friend. Meanwhile, the sports stud whose handsome blondness Andy covets is struggling secretly with his own conflicted sexuality. Though this isn't being marketed as a YA title, Babcock's empathic rendering of his young characters' voices makes it more than suitable for readers the age of the three boys who form the novel's romantic tangle. (Feb.)
