Young Adult Revisited

Here's what you need to know about Lily Bancroft. She's up for a prestigious honors scholarship that goes to the valedictorian. She has a boyfriend named Alex. And she works for her uncle Bob in his drugstore. Oh, and she really, really hates her social studies teacher Mr. Reiner. At the very beginning of the book, she goes to see him about changing her grade on a recent test. She claims she got all the multiple choices questions right and gave him everything he wanted in the essay section. I'm totally on her side until she says that some random girl in another class had similar results and got an A instead of the B that Lily got. He then points out that the other girl is in regular social studies class and not the honors section like her. Lily fantasizes about jumping over the desk and strangling him before running off when he won't change her grade. After chatting with Alex and her friend Julie, who had an older brother killed in a robbery, she start...

  Jessica is super excited because (a) her class is taking a field trip to the zoo and (b) Alice is the field trip mom/chaperon. As she explains to Liz, it means they get to lead the group and basically do whatever they want. That clearly isn't true though. Alice won't make Amy and Eve switch seats with them and makes them go to the back of the line when Jessica tries to cut to be next to her. She eventually gets so ticked off that when they reach the zoo, she convinces Liz, who is her buddy, to ditch the group. Liz refuses and they fight for so long that Winston and Todd come over to see what's going on. By the time they finish explaining themselves, the group really is gone. That's okay with Jessica because a bunch of kids wanted to see the snakes that she hates and all she wanted to do was see the monkeys. The zoo closed down that branch because a baby chimpanzee went missing. That doesn't stop her from convincing the others they should sneak over a...

You might remember Coach Wu from back when Kristy joined the softball team. It turns out that she also played soccer for UNC, which is where Mia Hamm went to school, and she's now the coach of the Stoneybrook Special Olympics soccer team. They take players with mental handicaps and partner them with other players. The handicapped kids are players, and the other kids are their partners. Abby signed up because she isn't getting the chance to play as much as she wanted. Abby spends most of her first practice thinking about how she's so much better than all the other players. Erin, one of the handicapped players, is a lot better than Abby expected. When the coach assigns spots, she puts Abby in a defensive spot and gives Erin Abby's usual spot. Abby tells her that she's a striker and was the top scorer on her old team, but the coach remains unmoved. Since she knows way better than anyone else, Abby decides that it's her job to show the coach how wron...