My Angelica

In this teen comedy cum love story, Williams (The True Colors of Caitlynne Jackson) alternates the points of view of Sage and George, two high school wannabe-authors secretly enamored with each other, and, unfortunately, incorporates generous samples of ""their"" work. When the school announces its annual writing competition, Sage is eager to enter her ""steamy"" novel-in-progress starring Angelica (with ""blacker-than-the-night hair"" and ""brighter-than-a-blue-sky eyes"") and her Native American lover, 247 Bears (whose numeral changes with each rewrite). The problem: George knows Sage's writing is atrocious and although he would like to win the contest himself by submitting some poems, he also wants to spare his beloved a humiliating loss. The solution: George decides to hide part of Sage's manuscript, so the judges will never lay eyes on it. While readers may find the antics of the too-naive heroine and bland hero to be as unconvincing as the pat outcome of this story, extracts of Sage's purple prose may elicit a few guffaws. Overall, the novel holds little suspense and comes embarrassingly close to crossing the ""cutesy"" line; a similar conceit, pitting a romance novel versus real-life romance, is handled with a great deal more wit in Louise Plummer's The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman. Ages 10-14. (Jan.)