A BAD BOY CAN BE GOOD FOR A GIRL

Three high-school girls take turns relating their separate experiences with the same bad boy, a senior jock who seems only interested in one thing: “nailing” them. There’s enough in this verse novel to make a grown woman cringe—remembering what it was like back then and that the more things change they stay the same. These narrators, despite their varied backgrounds and ambitions, are interested in, well, the physical realm of boy/girl relations and are willing to kiss and tell: They speak poetry of pedestrian language, which, at its most varied, describes erotic outings and, in one instance, oral sex. High school girls with uncomplicated reading agendas might find this brain candy gratifying. But those with SATs on their minds will find this shallow, repetitive and empty. (Fiction. YA)