NAKED WITHOUT A HAT

Will Avery, who’s slow, deliberate, and unusually kind to both people and animals, narrates his love story in an unsophisticated voice. At 19, he values his first chance to live away from home and hold down a job, even one cleaning up at a park. When he meets the volatile Zara, who describes herself as part Gypsy and part Irish, they fall in love and soon become close, sexually and emotionally. But Will and his mother have a secret that threatens to undermine his relationship with Zara. The secret, which comes out near the end, prompts readers to see the narrative up to that point in a new light. The revelation, only one of several plot elements that deal with prejudice, emphasizes how labels diminish everyone involved. With strong secondary characters and an original final twist, this British story, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread prize, moves slowly at times but ultimately rewards the reader in full measure. (Fiction. YA)