Jersey Angel

Gr 9 Up—Angel Cassonetti exists in the moment. Given a lot of freedom by her mother, the 17-year-old lives by herself in one of her family's Jersey Shore rental properties during the off-season, but she drinks and hooks up even when she's living with her family during the summer. She's never really paid attention in school or worried much about the future, unlike her friend Inggy, who's college-bound. But the summer before her senior year, when Inggy leaves for college visits and Angel's longtime, on-again-off-again boyfriend, Joey, says it's off for good, she finds herself wondering what comes next—and getting much too close to Inggy's boyfriend, Cork. While seemingly aimed at fans of raunchy reality television, this novel is Jersey Shore with heart. Bauman sometimes trips with awkward, scattered dialogue, and most of her secondary characters are stereotypes (the flighty mother, the perfect best friend, the sensitive ex-boyfriend), but Angel herself grows from flat to nuanced. Readers looking for a role model won't find it in her, but as she sees the effects of her freewheeling lifestyle (she's embarrassed by her failed attempt to take the SATs, hurt by classmates imagining her in a dead-end job after high school, and horrified after she discovers her mother kissing Cork), she promises herself that, "when I'm Mom's age, I'm going to know when to stop being a girl," and then realizes that her maturation must start now. Through it all, Angel remains her own person, independent, unashamed of enjoying sex, and determined to find her own way.—Gretchen Kolderup, New Canaan Library, CT