Crosswinds #22: Love and Lucy Bloom

Buchan writes poignantly of one girl's reaction to her parents' divorce. Lucy feels left out of the decisions that are affecting her lifeher parents don't understand that she is far more concerned about them than they are about her. When she and her mother take an $18,000 per season house at the shore, Lucy worries about the extremes her mother went to come up with the money. And she hates the phony habits her mother has acquired: wearing tight pants and high heels at the beach and cooking meals with entrees that reflect the income of the man invited (ground round for publishers, filet mignon for doctors). Unfortunately, most of the characters run to stereotypes: cynical city teens, catty and hypocritical divorced women, nondescript men. Lucy must carry this story, which ends in her emotional breakdown and healing, but her motives, unknown to her therapist or her mother, are also hidden from readers. Ages 12-up. (April)