THE PISTACHIO PRESCRIPTION

Thirteen-year-old Cassie starts her first-person story with the assertion that "Pistachio nuts, the red ones, cure any problem," and she ends with "Twinkles, I bet, are the answer"—a fair enough indication of the level of growth that has transpired in between. And though Cassie does indeed have problems that neither pistachios nor twinkles can solve—chiefly, divorcing parents whose insensitivity brings on her frequent asthma attacks-her tone throughout is so glib and inauthentic that it's hard to believe in a real suffering child under all the predictably triggered hysterics. ("Sometimes I think my parents are wonderful, and sometimes I hate them" is a typical Danziger illustration of adolescent psychology.) Cassie does better outside the home, acquiring a kissing boyfriend, running for freshman class president and beating out the candidate from the elite in-group, and winning the right to wear sunglasses in class after she has disastrously plucked out her eyebrows. Not improbable, but shallow—a synthetic slice of "typical teenage" life.