Finished Cecil Castellucci's Beige a few nights ago. Probably wouldn't have picked this one up on my own, but a teen put it in my hands, literally. (Thanks Nia!) Enjoyed this one a good bit more than I thought I would. It's the story of a young Canadian girl, Katy, who has been raised by her single mom and hadn't seen her dad, a legendary punk rocker, since she was quite small. Katy is a bit of a neurotic, type A personality, quite reserved and likes everything in it's place. Needless to say dad is nothing like that, so when Katy is sent to a spend a few weeks in L.A. with him while her mom is on an archaeological dig in Peru, they don't exactly hit it off. The other people that Katy meets, a girl her age named Lake, also the daughter of a punk rocker, and a couple of boys, Leo, the drop-dead gorgeous type, and Garth, the awkward, slightly nerdy type who seems to be a punk rocker wannabe, aren't exactly the types that Katy would choose to hang around with either. Lake has been bribed to hang out with Katy (talk about demeaning!) and promptly nicknames Katy, Beige, in reference to her first impressions of Katy's personality. Katy struggles to get through the couple of weeks, with hope that it would all be over soon, but then she gets the news that a few weeks is now going to be the entire summer. At first I thought that the characters were going to be predictable, but I found them quite engaging and the story pretty compelling. Katy's parents are both recovering addicts, so there are drug references, but the references are to the consequences, especially long term. Nothing objectionable for older middle schoolers or high school students.
Enjoy!
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