Pretty

Beth "Bebe" Baker's continued attempts at sobriety reveal themes of rebirth and redemption in this solid fiction debut from Lauren (Some Girls), a performer who's worked with Richard Foreman and the Wooster Group. After a single kiss from Aaron, a horn player in a jazz band gigging in her town, this Ohio girl hops the bus and goes on tour with them. But the band gets stuck in L.A., Bebe finds work as a stripper, and her and Aaron's drug use results in a car crash that kills him and leaves her with significant physical and emotional scars. A year later, Bebe is still in a rehab/vocational facility in east L.A. Though she's trying to finish beauty school, her continued risky behavior and involvement with Jake, a dangerous schizophrenic, jeopardizes her recovery. Though Lauren's novel is well-crafted, quick, and absorbing, Bebe's obvious self-sabotage%E2%80%94 dating Jake, breaking curfew, falling off the wagon%E2%80%94make her a hard character to sympathize with. You want her to care about herself, her life, her future, but when enlightenment comes, allowing her to clearly see the world, including herself and Aaron (who she's grieved as something of a saint), it's too little too late to earn the happy ending. (Sept.)