A FIELD GUIDE FOR HEARTBREAKERS

Calm, straitlaced Dessy and her maniacal best friend Veronica are attending a summer writing workshop in Prague. Fresh from a breakup, Dessy wants to focus on her writing. Veronica, though she is a gifted writer and avid reader, is much more interested in what the workshop and Prague have to offer in the way of boys. Veronica’s crazy schemes to attract boys work so well that Dessy thinks that she might have a chance with one of the boys from their writing class. That is, if she can survive her suitemate, Corky, who’s out to kill both her and Veronica. The descriptions of Prague’s heat and landscape are vivid and provide an ideal background for a fast-paced series of summer romances. The characters, however, fail where the setting succeeds. Dessy is a blank canvas, and Veronica is dizzying in her many mood swings. Corky is downright evil with no redeeming qualities. The lack of character development and resolution in some plotlines spoils what is otherwise a smartly humorous, sexy novel. (Fiction. YA)