Love and Leftovers
Sarah Tregay. HarperCollins/Tegen, $17.99 (464p) ISBN 978-0-06-202358-2
Poems, IM conversations, and emo love songs make up Tregay’s emotionally turbulent debut novel in verse. Sophomore Marcie Foster unwillingly moves from Idaho to her mother’s childhood home in New Hampshire after her father leaves her mother for a male bartender. Marcie is resentful until she realizes the move could be a chance to remake herself, escaping the image of a “Leftover” who doesn’t fit in. When she begins a heated relationship with popular athlete J.D., cheating on Linus, her sensitive musician boyfriend back home, she questions her nonphysical relationship with Linus (“I wonder/ if my boyfriend is gay./ That would explain/ why he never once/ took off/ my/ clothes”). Seven months later Marcie returns to Idaho, and things are more confusing than ever. The formal variety of Tregay’s poems creates an immediacy that should maintain readers’ interest and sympathy for Marcie. With multiple shredded relationships and friendships, there’s more than enough angst to go around, as Marcie rages against the decisions her parents have made, as well as her own. Ages 13–up. Agent: Upstart Crow Literary. (Jan.)