Children's Literature
- Elisabeth Greenberg
If a relationship is based on "enthusiastic mendacity," how do you know if it is getting better or getting worse? Lyin' O'Brien, aka O or Oliver, finds himself in exactly that situation with his girl, Sweet Junie Blue Lies, when she drops him cold at the start of their post-graduation summer. Everyone else seems to be getting on with his or her lives, but O is paralyzed. College? Working with his dad? How can he care? Where is Junie and what is happening to her? As O sorts through his family and friend relationships—storming into Junie's home to get punched out by her sleazy father and discovering that Junie's big sister is fairly intriguing—he also (finally) "cottons on" to some facts about Junie, the way life operates in their city, and what his own father's true nature is.
