There is snogging and sparring aplenty in Manning's (Guitar Girl
) appealing if rather overwrought launch title in the Diary of a Crush trilogy, which started as a fictional column in a now-defunct British teen mag. In her diary entries, 16-year-old Edie bemoans her family's recent move; she feels like a "socially dysfunctional freak of nature" at her new college. Yet her "spiritual self shift[s] into orbit" when she locks eyes with gorgeous, 19-year-old Dylan, whose "face was all hard planes and angles, cheekbones and jawline softened only by these pillowy lips." Those pillowy lips become quite familiar to Edie, who presses her lips to his and becomes obsessed with the guy—despite warnings about his many past dalliances. Dylan's aloofness between kissing sessions rankles Edie, who begins dating an attentive, sincere classmate on the sly. Edie's emotional roller coaster ride hits high and low points on a school trip to Paris, where she finally issues Dylan an ultimatum ("I want everything or nothing"). Dylan agrees to everything—yet the title of the second installment, Kiss and Make Up
(ISBN 0-14-240642-2), hints at more ups and downs to come (and the third, Sealed with a Kiss
, ISBN 0-14-240648-1, suggests—a happy ending?). Despite the tale's repetition and ample melodrama, readers with a fondness for romantic soap opera will find these smooching characters quite entertaining. Ages 14-up. (July)
