Can You Say Catastrophe? (The Mostly Miserable Life of April Sinclair)

Can You Say Catastrophe?
(The Mostly Miserable Life of April Sinclair)
Darby Creek
2013
160 pages

Available October 2013

Smart, sassy, and sparkling with wit, Can You Say Catastrophe? (The Mostly Miserable Life of April Sinclair)will resonate with readers. April is a normal, socially clunky tween (she's twelve in chapter one) who embarrasses easily and often with the slightest provocation. She thinks her nose is oddly shaped and her "booty" is too small and non-existent. Her sisters embarrass her, her father embarrasses her, April even embarrasses herself every time she opens her mouth. She trips over her words and says the wrong things when she talks to "hot" boys. April's best friends Billy and Brynn are her constant companions and she's lucky to have them.

Life is getting stranger and stranger this year. Suddenly, there's a special electricity between April and Billy. They've been friends forever, but now something has changed. When Billy touches April, she suddenly notices. Hot new neighbor Matt has April thinking of love, too.

April makes a terrible mistake when babysitting her sisters, and her parents lay down the law. No more summer camp! April is horrified! Imagine spending the summer with your parents and little sisters cooped up in an antiquated RV rolling down the highway while your friends are having a blast at camp--WITHOUT you! April has a meltdown and acts like a spoiled brat but her parents don't give in. It's family vacation time.

Once they get rolling and seeing the sights, April realizes that vacations with her family aren't all bad. There are fireworks and amusement parks, boat rides and playing in the ocean, hotels (after the clunker RV dies), and family fun. April can't change her situation, but she does change her attitude--for the better.

Girls (and boys) will relate with April--she is the quintessential thirteen year old on the brink of puberty. She questions her body image, guys' body image, why guys act the way they do and other issues that tweens commonly wonder about.

Recommended grade 6-up. A couple of kisses, April worries over her mismatched breasts--one being larger than the other, and her non-booty.

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