One Friend to Another

Nicole enters junior high with a desperate wish to overcome her ""genius'' reputation and be accepted by the in-crowd. But that formulaic beginning of this first novel soon gives way to the story of a struggle for acceptance from friends and the ways in which parents propel their children to acts of manipulation. Rhonda, breathtakingly lovely, befriends Nicole, but she is alternately caring and indifferent. Her sidekick, Randy, seems to hate Nicole, stealing her homework and circulating letters from Nicole's boyfriend among classmates. The cost to Nicole is her health, her boyfriend and her reputation as an honor student. That Rhonda is the perpetrator of Nicole's problems will not surprise readers, nor will the reactions of parents, teachers and other studentsachingly real, terribly unjust and very much part of the dark junior high milieu Feuer evokes so well. Ages 10-up. (September)