Book Review: Lost It

Title Lost It
Author Kristen Tracy
Genre YA Commercial Fiction
Rating B+

Summary Tess Whistle's life is falling apart... her friend is plotting death to a neighborhood dog, her parents are running off to "find themselves" in the wilderness, her grandmother is forcing Tess to learn to drive, and Tess's first boyfriend doesn't know how long he can put up with her insanity. (And her shoes explode.)

First Line "I didn't start out my junior year of high school planning to lose my virginity to Benjamin Easter--a senior--at his parents' cabin in Island Park underneath a sloppily patched, unseaworthy, upside-down canoe."

Review This book was laugh-out-loud funny. Tess was quite unlike any character I'd ever read before, her worries and anxieties (and knowledge of survival tactics for freak situations) were a hoot to read. Also, Tess's friend, her parents, and her grandma contributed to the laughs as well. The whole thing was chuckle-inducing nearly the whole way through.

The only drawback to me was that the climax of the book was precipitated on Tess making up a lie (as a survival tactic to not have to admit that she still drank juice boxes) that went on a little too long. I guess it was funny in that the big blow-up of the book was all because Tess told a (really dumb) lie and through a series of crazy and zany events, it blows up in her face. But throughout it all, Tess stays relatively un-whiny (and when she gets a little whiny, she bucks up pretty quick).

How's this for funny: When her grandma suggests that Tess save a whale in her boyfriend's name, because he's reportedly a big fan of marine life, Tess thinks, "Until that point, I'd had no clue that you could save a whale in somebody else's name. In fact, it wasn't totally clear to me how you went about saving a whale to begin with, other than not harpooning one," (216).