Cryer's Cross

Kendall Fletcher is a smalltown Montana high school senior with obsessive-compulsive disorder, waiting to hear if she's been accepted into Juilliard. At the same time, she's deeply concerned over the strange disappearance of two of her classmates. Both the story and Julia Whelan's narration are at their best when focusing on the more realistic aspects of Kendall's life. Whelan's very young, fragile voice is a good fit for the teen protagonist, and she puts feeling and warmth into Kendall's dealings with friends and adults. Her descriptions of Kendall's soccer games are lively and energetic, and the moments in which her heroine obeys her compulsions are handled with sensitivity. But the supernatural aspects, which seem to belong to another book entirely, and not an especially good one, give Whelan difficulties%E2%80%94particularly the voices of the doomed teens, which even Meryl Streep would have trouble interpreting. A Simon Pulse hardcover. (Feb.)