Gr. 7^-10. What's more important, saving the environment or getting your dream date for the senior prom? Nicole has to shelve the first concern while she marshals her full force for the latter campaign. Even childhood friend and neighbor Chase, turned grunge and a real outsider to the popular crowd, becomes her date project for a while when the expected invitation from highly sought Brad fails to materialize. With droll humor, Nicole and Chase tell their stories in alternating chapters, bringing to life the frenetic intensity of the high-school social scene. We're back in the school of Strasser's
How I Changed My Life (1995), but with a change of central characters. Family life is featured here, too, as both teens cope with single parents, trying to figure out the parental mind-set. In what is perhaps a too contrived surprise maneuver in an otherwise fun read, Nicole's mother and Chase's dad plan to move in together by the end of the story. On the whole, however, an enjoyable, quick-paced novel with authentic characters and dialogue.
Anne O'Malley
From Kirkus Reviews
The prolific Strasser strikes again with a companion novel to his very funny first look at Time Zone High, How I Changed My Life (1995), and this one's even more fresh and irreverently funny than its predecessor. Nicole is a senior at TZH who takes life seriously and plans to find ``a cause or disease or something'' to devote her life to, but only after basketball star and hunk Brad asks her to the prom. To her surprise and consternation, Brad asks someone else. Drastic times require drastic measures, so Nicole transforms her next-door neighbor and oldest friend, grunge-king Chase, who's handsome but not very clean, into a stud muffin. She succeeds, of course (making true the book's reader-grabbing title), but not without a whole series of the hilarious, well-concocted misadventures. Both Nicole and Chase are corking characters, as are all their friends. Best of all, the high humor doesn't detract at all from Strasser's serious but understated message about nonconformity and self-acceptance; it's there, behind all the goofy plot twists and effervescent dialogue. (Fiction. 14+) --
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