NemeSIS by Susan Marshall
This YA novel by a Canadian author involves a number of issues that teens face in today's world. The main character, Nadine, is the younger of two sisters, and facing a lot of adjustments in life. She moved to high school over a year ago, but didn't adjust to the new environment as well as she thought she would. She feels out of place and the friends she had in middle school have moved on. Around the same time that move happened, her parents separated. Her dad went to New York, and while it was supposed to be temporary, a year has now passed and he's still there. Nadine was close to her dad, and they spent a lot of time bonding when he took her to her hockey games. Now she's quit hocket because she no longer has a reliable ride, and she's been hiding in the library at lunch time. She's also been avoiding her older and very pretty sister Rachel, as Rachel hasn't taken the changes in their home life well and seems to blame Nadine for every little thing that goes wrong. Her mood is volatile, and the way she treats Nadine is something Nadine is only realizing now as a form of bullying. With their mother working more hours and studying for her real estate exam, the two girls are alone together more now than ever before.
She knows something has to change, but she isn't sure where to start until she notices a AA flyer mentioning the twelve steps, and decides steps are what she needs to set to make the changes in her life. Her first move is approaching another girl she sees in the library at lunch, Anne, and this move towards friendship takes her slowly toward other changes in her life, some more difficult than others.
I liked the way we saw Nadine's thought processes as she found her way towards more self confidence, and problem solved along the way. When she had to deal with bad choices, she realized that they were something she needed to learn from and not hide from. A good choice for teen readers.
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