May 15, 2004
Not only are the three Stepp sisters dirt-poor, reason enough to suffer taunting and rejection at their high school in the small Maine town of Millbrook, each has her own mockery-inducing peculiarity: one is a super-intelligent geek, another is on the wrong side of chubby, and the third is six feet tall. In the first installment in a planned trilogy about the sisters, Love focuses on the brainiac, Abby, who leaves Millbrook as quickly as her college scholarship allows. She becomes a well-respected researcher, leads a respectable life, and has a dull but respectable boyfriend. Then a choice research position opens up in Millbrook. Ignoring the conventional warning that you can't go home again, Abby returns, only to face the same crowd that made her life hell in high school. Worse yet, she's attracted to former high-school bad boy Chase Jordan. With an enjoyable blend of humor and pathos, Love transforms her heroine from someone emotionally trapped in her past to someone embracing her present.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)