Love and Betrayal and Hold and Mayo

This sequel to My First Love and Other Disasters tells the story of best friends Steffi and Victoria who take waitressing jobs at summer camp and plans to have 'fabulous parties every night'. Steffi's boyfriend Robbie proves a problem - Victoria falls in love with him and spends the entire summer trying to avoid him and preserve her life-long friendship with Steffi. If this sounds predictable and awkward, then that's exactly what a good part of the book is - alternating Victoria's soul-searching about Robbie with her disastrous attempts at waiting tables. The tone of the book is uneasy - never quite believable yet occasionally entertaining. It comes into its own in the last six chapters - which read almost like a separate unit. Robbie and Victoria finally get together and the result is a realistic record of the feelings of a 16-year-old girl physically ready to make love but emotionally unwilling. I'd offer this book to third and fourth-year girls on the strength of this, but it's far from being the best of its type.