Frances O'Roark Dowell, TEN MILES PAST NORMAL

Well-written, younger YA, more sweet than edgy, but a very engaging 14-year-old narrator who lives on a farm with goats and feels like an outcast as a freshman in high school. No big surprises here--Janie makes a couple outcasty friends and then meets a cool guy who doesn't care if she's different and offers to teach her bass guitar ... and there's a school project that involves an old man who (of course) dies. But the voice is fresh and honest and funny ... and having a 12-year-old myself, I passed this one right on to her after I finished; she liked it too. Would definitely recommend to the 7th-grade girls my daughter hangs out with ...