Zebra-girl

A high school student bounces back following her parents’ separation in Lee’s YA novel.

Nessa Harding’s senior year is not going well. The Montreal teen’s father, an aspiring poet, has left her mother, which has led Nessa’s more successful mother, a painter, to suffer a nervous breakdown. To make matters worse, Nessa has to give up her beloved dog when she and her mom are forced to relocate to a new apartment in a pet-free building. At school, she pines unrequitedly for Bryce Sinclair, a former basketball star who quit the team after the recent death of his father. As Nessa attempts to handle her increasingly unwell mother and figure out what she wants to do after graduation, she strikes up a friendship with her new neighbors across the hall, Dagmar and Priscilla, two older costume designers with a collection of “showbiz mannequins.” She also gets to know the school’s guidance counselor, Ms. Mazur, who operates her own art gallery in her spare time. Some good luck makes Bryce aware of Nessa’s existence, but impressing the king of the school will take a level of confidence Nessa doesn’t have. Luckily, her new and old friends are there to help build her back up, figure out her future, and maybe convince Bryce to take her to the prom. Lee’s prose has a magnetic energy, capturing Nessa’s world in vibrant detail. Here she arrives home to discover her mother in the midst of an episode: “I find her curled up on her bed in the fetal position. Her hair is a wispy mess, like a bird’s nest, and she’s covered in splotches of various shapes and sizes. Her chest rises and falls rhythmically. She looks like a living, breathing Rorschach Test. This could be a good thing. Or not.” Called Zebra-girl for the zebra-print headband that helps her forge her new identity, Nessa is an endearing protagonist. Much of the book’s charm comes from the characters who surround her, reminding readers how essential community is in adolescence.
A stylish and heartwarming coming-of-age story.