Bad Imaginings,
    by Caroline Adderson

A Litany in Time of Plague,
    by K. D. Miller

The One with the News,
    by Sandra Sabatini

Her friends are desperate characters: Regina's on the road to ruin, Bono's more boy than girl, and Jackie's postering her bedroom into a rock'n'roll tomb. Yet beneath the party-hardy attitude, no one is as disaffected as they seem, or want to be.

In a voice that ranges from tough to achingly vulnerable, Sharon English powerfully conveys the anger, lust and absurdity that spiral into one girl's growing fight against the tuned-out numbness of her world.

`Germaine-German-Germ Steeves is not one of MacKenzie High's preppie all-stars. She smokes pot on a regular basis with the other losers and gets full columns of C's on her report cards. One of her best friends is turning her bedroom into a monument to dead rock stars; the other is known as the Blow Job Queen. All Germaine wants to do is survive her parents' tough love program, get a real boyfriend, and make it through high school. After Grade 9, only four more years to go. Wellington, Ontario, circa 1980, where every kid knows every lyric to Pink Floyd's The Wall, is the setting for this collection of linked stories. English tells each story from Germaine's point of view as she struggles through high school. We see Germaine's shifting attitudes, beliefs, and expectations, and never for a moment do we doubt that she is genuine. Each story is written differently, the style changing as Germaine changes. In the later stories, the style is a little more experimental, drawing us into the murkiness and confusion that Germaine is experiencing. The last story, though, is very clear-headed, as she has a revelation and is filled with hope about life after MacKenzie High. As with potato chips, you can't consume just one of these stories at a sitting. English's writing is powerful and addictive -- so much so that at the end of the last story I wanted to turn back to the first page and start over.'
     -- Linda Bayley, Canadian Book Review Annual

`Irony is left to the characters, who use it like a weapon. The result is highly readable, peppered with spicy bad-girlishness and teenage suburban wretchedness that rings true on nearly every page. It is nostalgic without being mawkish, reminding the reader that, no matter how many times we hear that youth is everything, trying to stay cool in high school is an often-lost battle.'
    -- Sue McCluskey, THIS magazine

`English's book is told in a series of short stories with all the same characters over the span of a year and a half as the characters are nearing the end of their high school lives. People grow up. People grow stupider. People make life altering decisions that will only come back to haunt them in the years to come. English grabs your hand and leads you through these people's lives like a tour guide through a parenting manual on how to not raise your kids. It's not that the kids in this book are real bad. They just make uninformed choices when only a little guidance could have led them on a straight and narrow path.

`If it came down to having to choose between [Mary Lou] Zeitoun's 13 and Uncomfortably Numb to re-read, or pass along to a teenager who needs a little something to relate to as she grows through her formative years, Uncomfortably Numb would definitely be the choice. Both were good reads, but Numb was just that much better than I might just read it again soon. One can never have enough lessons in parenting.'
    -- Adam Wilson, Canadian Content

`English's first collection adds weight to the premise that the linked short story is our strongest form. She risks the hard discipline of remaining in the heart and behind the eyes of a suburban teenager, and with no narrative cheating. She pulls it off.'
    - Steven Heighton