THE BOYFRIEND LIST

Siegfried makes a believable 15-year-old narrator as she slips into the role of Ruby Oliver, a spirited girl struggling with identity and self-esteem after suffering the kind of social crisis that sets high schoolers reeling. Ruby's boyfriend of six months, Jackson, has dumped her in favor of her best friend, Kim. Ruby's resulting panic attacks land her in the office of a shrink, Dr. Z, and part of her therapy involves writing a complete list of the boys with whom she's ever had a crush, kiss, relationship or "little any-kind-of-anything." As listeners learn about each entry on the boyfriend list (including lots of authentic-sounding dialogue and asides, which appear in the book as footnotes to the list), they hear the Jackson drama and every painful, truthful detail about the clique land mines Ruby must maneuver when it comes to her former friends, to whom she's now a "leper." Via Siegfried's sharp delivery and expert teen inflection, one can almost envision the eye-rolling and other gestures that might accompany Ruby's smart-aleck, I can't-believe-this-humiliating-thing-is-happening-to-me attitude. Ages 12-up. (Mar.)