Rough Patch

Gr 8 Up—Keira has just started high school, and already her boy-obsessed best friend Sita is trying to get her a boyfriend. The problem is that Keira is not sure she wants a boyfriend; she spent the summer with a crush on a girl only to find herself in the arms of a boy, and she is now grappling with what it really means to be bisexual. She occupies her time at the ice rink training in competitive figure skating, at her after-school job cleaning dentist offices, and taking on the world alongside her precocious sister Sammie, who is a wheelchair user, while avoiding her antagonistic brother Tyler. After a blowup with Sita, Keira finds solace in new friend and romantic interest Jayne, a confident and strong-willed lesbian who is hiding her sexuality from her fundamentalist Christian family. Keira's parents are selectively supportive, encouraging her to excel at school but skirting the issue of the teen's sexuality. The writing is weak (a less compelling Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison), and the pacing is poor, with very little happening in the first half, and the highly dramatic ending feels rushed. While the prose and plotting leave much to be desired, this is one of few realistic YA novels about bisexuality.