Train I Ride

Our almost-thirteen-year-old narrator has green hair, an unfortunate childhood, and a made-up name--Rydr. She lost her mother to drug overdose and now her grandmother to lung cancer. Rydr has boarded a train from Palm Springs to Los Angeles and then on to Chicago, where another elderly relative awaits her. Along the way, her backstory emerges slowly and incompletely. Rydr's future remains equally vague, but over the course of the novel, it's clear that her fellow passengers (and Amtrak employees) give her a new outlook, most notably Neal, the gay snack bar attendant she wishes were her father, and Tenderchunks, a Boy Scout who introduces Rydr to Allen Ginsberg's Howl and with whom she shares her first kiss. This is essentially a road-trip novel (with a train providing the means of transportation rather than a car), with various destinations and a parade of characters providing significant milestones as the story progresses. The other strength of the novel is the aloof quality of Rydr's narrative voice. It's completely appropriate given her background, yet becomes endearing as the reader gradually warms up to her plight. jonathan hunt