The After-Life, Daniel Ehrenhaft
In short: A pretty good road-trip novel. It didn’t leave much of an impression, to be honest (I’m writing this review about six weeks after reading it, because…well, I forgot I’d read it). But I do remember enjoying it. The premise is that a messed-up alcoholic drop-out nineteen-year-old starts attending the private school where the half-siblings he’s never met (his dad ran out when he was a baby, and he hasn’t seen him since) also go to school. Upon matriculating, Will meets the half-siblings—twins Kyle and Liz—and, shortly thereafter, his long-absent father. Daddy then dies, sending the three kiddos on a road trip up the East Coast. They chat, they do drugs, they…well, mack a little bit. But it’s all good. And the first chapter—Will’s entrance essay for Kyle and Liz’s posh private school—is insanely funny. I liked it, and I suspect most of the teens who pick it up will, too—regardless of gender, for once.
Read it if you like: The Au-pairs, but don’t want to lose any more brain cells; debauchery; sexier updates of older YA road-trip novels, like my favorite, Joan Bauer’s Rules of the Road