Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer

I find the nature of friendship fascinating--not unlike new love. There's the giddy beginnings when all the things you have in common with another seem an endless discovery and you want to spend every waking minute getting to know the other as you would yourself. There's the supremely delicate moments a friendship balances on, the ones you don't recognize while they're happening, but that will determine whether this will be a life-long bond of kindred spirits, a casual connection destined to fade, or a love-hate case of friends turned enemies.

The novel Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer explores this topic of friendship with great skill. Seniors Kathryn and Brooke are both talented singers preparing to compete in a prestigious competitition for fame, fortune, and a ticket out of their small town. In chapters alternating between the two girls' perspectives we learn that the bitter rivalry they share began as a friendship during junior year, and through a series of flashbacks the mystery of what went wrong is slowly revealed. On the surface, the girls are remarkably different. Kathryn is tiny and shy and drowning in stress as she tries to please her parents, scrape together money for college, and deal with constant bullying while Brooke is larger than life, popular without effort, searching for the attention of her distant but beloved father and for something more meaningful than the shallowness that is high school.

What I loved best about this book (and there were many things to love) was the depth of the characters. The author makes it impossible to take sides because you hear both girls' versions of what happened and see that they both behave badly, make poor decisions, and misunderstand--as do we all. I also found the ending richly satisfying, nicely balanced between sweet and realistic.

All told, a wonderfully timely tale that has a ripped from the headlines feel with its subjects of music competitions and female bullying (think Glee and Mean Girls for classical music). A great beginning for Sara Bennett Wealer--here's hoping for many more to come!

You can follow Sara Bennett Wealer on Twitter at @sbennettwealer or at her blog: http://sbennettwealer.livejournal.com/.

Food, Girls, and Other Things I Can't Have

Andrew Zansky is a big guy. At fifteen years old, he weighs 306.4 pounds. And unfortunately, this is all anybody seems to see in Andrew. Nobody cares that he is funny and smart, and nobody notices that he is a good writer or that he is devasted by his dad's decision to leave his mom. That's what it is to be big in this society. Every moment of every day, Andrew thinks about his weight--whether his jeans will fit in the morning when he gets dressed, whether he will fit between the desk and the chair, whether he can go to his locker without being body checked into his locker by a bully. His pain, his humilitation, his worry--they're all visceral and they make the reader cringe for him.

Enter O. Douglas--that constant of every high school, "the popular quarterback." When O. Douglas takes notice of Andrew and rescues him from a beating, Andrew's life takes a dramatic turn. Without consciously meaning to, Andrew finds himself trying out for the football team--maybe to get in shape, maybe to get popular, maybe to get the girl of his dreams. Even Andrew isn't sure. What he is sure of is that something in his life has to change...the question is will Andrew be able to live with the consequences of change?

I loved the self-deprecating, witty protagonist of this book and found his emotions and situation realistic and touching. A couple of unexpected twists keep the "teenage makeover" plot fresh, and there are laugh-out-loud funny moments sprinkled throughout. This was author Allen Zadoff's first novel, and, based on its quality, this reader can't wait to read is next one out in May.