BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

Four long stories, one by each author, all told in first person, all about teen heartbreak. These are not deep or profound, but their tone will resonate with the target audience. Although the focus is breakups, each leaves protagonists and readers with the hope of a new and better relationship to come. In Burnham’s “Last Stand,” Toby isn’t ready for sex with his gorgeous (and stacked) girlfriend Amber—but she is. In “Don’t Mind Me,” Clark’s Goth Dee discovers her football-jock boyfriend is actually working at seduction so he can write about it. A literal bump to the head enables Dee to hear what he’s thinking, and it isn’t pretty. Hopkins’s “My Name is Lisa,” in verse, is perhaps the strongest of the stories, as plain Lisa gets a makeover from a very manipulative boy. Sandoval’s “Party Foul” finds lesbian Mia publicly humiliated by her first love. Often frankly sexy and peppered with teen-friendly references (hip slang, IM conversations), this box of candy for the lovelorn satisfies. (Fiction. YA)