Notes on a Near-Life Experience

Mia, 15, is the second of three children whose parents suddenly decide to divorce. In her upper–middle class California neighborhood, she senses she'll be stigmatized by this, but is "tired of avoiding feeling sad by feeling numb" (the "near-life experience" of the title). She processes her fears and questions in episodic vignettes detailing the changes her parents' split has wrought on herself and her siblings. Newcomer Birdsall is a smooth writer and punctuates her heroine's self-absorbed navel-gazing with gimlet-eyed observations and wry humor. "It's hard to take the government seriously," Mia notes, "when the Terminator runs your state." The build-up to the prom, which ends disastrously, is, however, all there is in terms of plot. The author introduces interesting threads about growing up in Yorba Linda, the birthplace of Richard Nixon, and a romance with Mia's brother's best friend but does not fully develop them. The heroine's epiphany—that in order to work through her problems she's going to have to admit to her patient psychotherapist that she has some—may not be climactic, but there's succor here for kids in similar straits. Even teens whose parents' marriage is intact will likely enjoy Mia's world-weary view. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)