The Cure for Crushes: And Other Deadly Plagues

<div>This follow-up to <i>The Healing Time of Hickeys,</i> covers the second half of hapless Haley Andromeda Harmony&#8217;s last year of high school. Haley likes to think she's just a normal girl, plagued with all the normal doubts of a too-smart-for-her-own-good, slightly hypochondriac, hickey-prone teenager. In the first book devoted to her semi-glamorous life, she faced chicken pox, puzzled over her dad&#8217;s mysterious job, and documented in her diary the indifference of the object of her affections, J. T. Now, in her final months of high school, she must face the inevitable question: What happens next? Finding the answer isn&#8217;t easy. For one thing, she has a real boyfriend now, but that doesn't stop her from having crushes on nearly every other boy she meets. Plus, her dad has moved his Much Younger Girlfriend (MYG) into their ramshackle house. From bungee jumping in winter to supporting best friend Jules at auditions for the TV show &#8220;Who's the Prettiest of Them All?&#8221; Haley&#8217;s TGMYL 2 (&#8220;the greatest year of my life, part two&#8221;) &#8212; recorded as diary entries channeled through award-winning author Karen Rivers &#8212; has more than its fair share of misadventures.</div>

Grade 10 Up–In this follow-up novel to The Healing Time of Hickeys (Raincoast, 2004), readers are once again led in a diary format through the trials and tribulations of Haley Andromeda Harmony, high school senior. Haley has a lot going on during part two of The Greatest Year of My Life (TGYML): she has a boyfriend, really nice Brad, whom she keeps avoiding; her bestish friends, flawless Jules and sympathetic Kiki, are getting on her nerves–no, they're not–uh, yes, they are–well, sometimes, anyway; and she does not, absolutely does not, still have a crush on JT (the one that gorgeous Jules wound up with, of course!). Her aged, perennially jobless, hippie Dad has, ugh, an MYG (Much Younger Girlfriend)! If all that weren't enough, a party faux pas, weekend mishaps, birthday-party bungee-jumping in mid-winter (in Canada, no less!), broken limbs, devastated self-esteem, over-dyed hair, and non-cooperative horoscopes all conspire to make Haley's TGYML an ongoing disaster. The teen's relentless self-denigration is grating, and readers might be tempted to suggest that she choose her friends more carefully. Nevertheless, those who find confessional, self-deprecating, wildly over-the-top, teen chick lit entertaining will embrace this novel. More discerning readers will get more bang for the buck from Louise Rennison's clever series, beginning with the legendary Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (HarperCollins, 2000). The British manage to present the absurd, zany, self-absorbed teen novel formula with tongue firmly in cheek–something North American writers haven't quite achieved yet.–Roxanne Myers Spencer, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green
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