THE MELINDA ZONE

A reflective novel focusing on a docile 15-year-old only child—survivor of a divorce war that's been going on since her babyhood—who escapes a well-programmed life split between two homes in Milwaukee to spend a summer in St. Joseph, Michigan, with her aunt, uncle, and a ``dazzlingly'' confident and beautiful (and slightly older) cousin. Melinda's plan is to draw comfort from their family while spending her vacation floating freely in the ``Melinda Zone,'' far from the parents who don't even agree on her name (Dad calls her ``Linda''; to her mother, she's ``Mindy''). The respite does allow Melinda to recuperate emotionally from the strife at home; at the same time, she manages to mend some ties in her aunt's family. Most important, with the prodding of Paul, a neighbor friend, she makes some discoveries about herself, gaining the strength to confront her parents with her burgeoning independence. Her assertion causes pain all around, but frees Melinda to begin to live her own life. A thoughtful, sophisticated consideration of love, and its burdens and rewards, in contemporary families. (Fiction. YA)