My Beautiful Failure

Gr 9 Up—Billy's family is still recovering from last winter, when the teen's father sank into a deep depression that he's only now just coming out of. Billy, 16, channels his frustrations and worry about his father's mental health into his sophomore-year project, volunteering as a friendly, welcoming ear for the depressed, lonely, and/or bored callers to the Listeners hotline. He plans to be a psychologist, so he's pleased with the work, but he soon breaks the biggest rule of Listeners: he gets involved with a caller. Billy knows he should pretend each call with Jenney is the first one, that they don't have a history, but he can't help falling for her and believing that they are the answer to each other's problems. Jenney's calls become more and more desperate right up to the very last one, when Billy does everything he can to be the one to save her. The premise is interesting and unusual, but flaw in the plot makes it unrealistic: the hotline takes teen volunteers with very little training. Plus, while readers are supposed to find Billy insightful and empathetic, instead he comes across as a pompous know-it-all whose ordeals do not help him grow.—Brandy Danner, Wilmington Memorial Library, MA