Hate You

Alice has not seen her father since the day her mother threw him out several years ago--but her hatred for him is as permanent as the damage he did to her vocal cords during his last angry rampage. (""Dad wasn't a hitter--he was a squeezer, a grabber and a shaker""). Now Alice's voice, ""all cracked, scratched and broken,"" is a painful reminder of her past. She cannot sing the songs she composes in her head; nor can she feel sorrow when she learns that her father is dying of cancer. Alice, who narrates, talks tough a lot of the time, yet, like many protagonists of the YA genre, reveals a sensitive side (through her song lyrics, included here). She undergoes a rite of passage--confronting her father in the hospital--and, with the support of her kind and stalwart boyfriend, comes to accept what she cannot change: ""I have a voice! An ugly, ragged, dragged-through-the-dirt voice. But it's real. It's mine."" First-novelist McNamee offers a biting account of domestic violence, but he never moves out of the problem-novel arena. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)