Name Me Nobody

Heavily dosed with Hawaiian dialect, Yamanaka's (Heads by Harry) first book for younger readers is rich in atmosphere and bold in its themes, but slow-moving and demanding. Emi-lou, the ninth-grader narrator, describes herself as ""a nobody bastard girl""--her mother has run off to California long ago, leaving Emi-Lou with her grandmother. At school, Emi-Lou is ridiculed because of her weight and also because her best friend Von is thought to be a lesbian (""Sometimes the Jap-girls call me Emi-loser. Sometimes they call me Emi-lez""). With Von's help (in the form of shoplifted diet pills, diuretics and laxatives) Emi-lou sheds some pounds, but her problems increase. Von gets sexually involved with an older, tougher girl on their softball team, and Emi-Lou is both jealous of Von's attention and appalled that Von is turning out to be a ""butchie."" Meanwhile, a couple of boys act interested in Emi-Lou, but other girls nastily tell her that the boys have ulterior motives. Yamanaka gets all the details right, but her precision is a pitfall; Emi-Lou's analysis of every exchange, while painfully realistic, brings the pacing to a crawl. Readers may lose patience with the heroine, especially with the amount of time she takes to accept Von and to wise up to her suitors. Mature teens may prefer Yamanaka's novels for adults, also with Hawaiian settings and coming-of-age themes. Ages 13-up. (June)