Trust and Betrayal

The format of Bode's latest is familiar: a series of first-person accounts from different young people. Unlike the author's best work (The Voices of Rape), this collection never coheres around a central topic, reading instead like a compilation of too-good-to-throw-away leftovers from her previous books. While all of the 18 monologues here in some way discuss relationships with friends and enemies, the dominant subjects are chiefly other, darker issues. It's hard to see how the theme of ``trust and betrayal'' relates, for example, to a 16-year-old boy's story about falling in love with a 28-year-old woman he meets on a computer chat line. Another's discussion of his violent temper (caused by drugs prescribed for, variously, an attention deficit, stunted growth and mood swings) is principally about wrestling with personal demons. Frequently heart-rending, these pieces offer more than Bode's title implies. Ages 12-up. (Feb.)