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By James LecesnePhoebe's cousin Leonard is 13. And he's OUT. Gay. Flamboyant. Weird.
So when he comes to stay with them in small town New Jersey, 15 year old Phoebe's not thrilled.
And just Leonard has won most of the town over... he disappears.
Everyone else assumes he ran away. But Phoebe can't let go. She has to find out what happened to him, and why.
Cool fact about the author: James' short film "Trevor" won an Academy Award. He also co-founded the Trevor Helpline, a 24-hour suicide-prevention hotline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and questioning teens.
There's a review of "Absolute Brightness" by Daisy Porter here. Add your review of this book in comments!
1 comment:
I loved this book. I read it shortly after its publication and posted a review on my school library web page. I've since left the school and the hundreds of reviews I had posted disappeared - but I had it in my computer - so here it is:
Absolute Brightness
Fifteen-year-old Phoebe Hertle narrates this stunning debut novel about the life, disappearance and death of fourteen-year-old Leonard Pelkey, orphan son of Phoebe's uncle's girlfriend. When Phoebe's uncle can no longer care for Leonard; he asks his sister, Phoebe's mother to take him into her Neptune, NJ home. Phoebe is definitely not in the mood for Leonard with his midriff-baring top, madras plaid capris and six-inch platform sneakers. She thinks her single-mother has enough on her plate dealing with the beauty salon she runs, her divorce from Phoebe's dad who ran off with one of the salon's employees and with Phoebe's sister's depression.
Phoebe just wants to hang with her best bud, Electra, work for her mom occasionally, shoplift occasionally for kicks and get through high school under the radar as the homely sister of a beauty queen. Then Leonard starts befriending all of her mother's clients and becomes her mother's go-to man. When he begins suggesting make-over tips and even her sister, Deidre goes for his suggestions, Phoebe just wants to kill him. But she never wanted him to end up dead.
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