Scarlett Epstein Hates It Here

From the moment you start Anna Breslaw's witty, heart-felt SCARLETT EPSTEIN HATES IT HERE, it's pretty clear that Scarlett is not your ordinary teen--and Breslaw isn't your ordinary writer.

Scarlett's a smart, acerbic teenager who'd rather live on the boards of the fandom for her favorite TV show than interact with the real-live teenagers in her high school. When the TV show is cancelled, Scarlett, desperate to keep some of the top fanfic writers together, proposes a new twist on the show: fanfic with original characters. The only problem? Scarlett models these original characters on real people, including her long-time crush Gideon who has recently, inexplicably, joined forces with the Populars. And that's only the start of Scarlett's complications.

As other reviews have noted, this isn't a plot driven novel, so much as it is an intimate look at Scarlett's life, her struggles to fit into a virtual and real life that don't always have clear-cut boundaries, her strained relationship with both her mother and the writer father she idealizes (but who has left them behind for a new family in NYC). No one in this story is perfect, and that's part of what makes the story so wonderful--a perfect blend of humor and heartache. Really though, Scarlett's voice carries this story--she's the kind of person I would have loved to know in high school (though I'm afraid she would have been too cool for me).

Some language, discussion of sexual situations.