METAMORPHOSIS

Since his brilliant, meth-addict sister, Thena, ran away from home, Ovid just wants his now-overprotective parents off his back, to express his art freely, to understand why he wants to hurt himself secretly and to make sense of high school. Other juniors “wrestling with the messes the gods got us into” include musician Orpheus, obsessed with his girlfriend; incest victim Myrra, trying to find what’s left of the girl in her; Alexis, a female Icarus flying too high on weed; and Sophie and Caleb, a cyber Psyche and Cupid. Like his Roman namesake, Ovid captures it all in his private notebook, filled with prose entries in realistic teenspeak, beautifully crafted poems that provide a back story and surreal black-line illustrations, which the author’s son reworked from his own high-school notebooks. While the brevity of Franco’s first YA novel may disappoint readers who want these archetypal yet complex characters in more detail, this accessible, modern retelling resembles the original by springing from story to story and exploring love and its ability to confound all reason. (Mythology. YA)