I’M EXPLODING NOW

“Part of my problem is, I don’t know what to do with my life,” writes 16-year-old Max. “I mean, I know I want a girlfriend and some money, but that doesn’t tell me what to do in my spare time.” Teen angst has grabbed Max by the collar and skewered him, and his only way of coping is by writing it all down. This could result in a wildly claustrophobic read, but in Hite’s masterful hands, Max’s misery is both bitingly funny and hugely sympathetic. His personal voyage of discovery takes him from his family’s Manhattan apartment—which Max calls the “Whooten Box”—to his New Age yoga-instructor aunt’s Woodstock home in a converted barn and back again, with a pretty girl’s phone number in his pocket and the beginnings of a positive attitude. What keeps Max’s self-absorption from making him an utterly hateful character is his willing acknowledgement that he is flawed and self-absorbed, and his understanding that although he is sometimes a jerk, it is within his grasp not to be. That revelation makes this offering a welcome breath of fresh air. (Fiction. YA)