#9: Julie Halpern, Into The Wild Nerd Yonder

[kareila]

This book didn't really click with me. The main character, Jessie, complains about how generic she feels and how she is drifting apart from her childhood friends as she enters her sophomore year of high school. She looks for new friends and finds welcome with a group of D&D players who admire her sewing and costuming skills - and yet, pretty much the entire suspense of the plot hangs on whether she will embrace this identity, or whether she will let her fear of being labelled a "nerd" keep her apart from them. It turns out to be no hardship, since her fears of social leprosy are completely unfounded - everyone says "oh, I tried D&D once" or "yeah, they're nice people" or something to that effect. It would have been a much more interesting book if she actually had become more unpopular as a result. Anyway, I never worried in high school what people I didn't care about thought of me, as long as I had a few people who did care about me and helped me to feel understood and have fun.