Are You Alone on Purpose?

Alison Shandling and Harry Roth would seem to have nothing in common. ""Queen Nerd"" Alison sticks with one close friend and stays out of trouble; her parents have enough worries dealing with her autistic twin, Adam. Harry, a bully, runs with the popular crowd and delights in embarrassing his widowed father, a not terribly intelligent rabbi. But a bitter set of coincidences draws Alison to Harry: her mother, infuriated by the rabbi's insensitivity to Adam, tells the rabbi that she wishes his son were handicapped too. When Harry is paralyzed in a diving accident, the rabbi sees it as divine punishment and tries to atone by showering Adam with attention. First-novelist Werlin compensates for the unlikely plot and the even less likely romance that develops between Harry and Alison by investing her characters with rich, strong personalities. She alternates between Alison's and Harry's perspectives to round out the reader's understanding of both families. Her novel has a few too many revelatory moments and too neat a resolution, but her skill in sketching out family dynamics and probing the difficult issues of adolescence mark her as a writer worth watching. Ages 10-14. (Oct.)