Amazon.com (ISBN 0440227143, Mass Market Paperback)

He's also the first boy to slug her when she tells him she's going to have his baby. Hannah Ziebarth, 15, had felt loved by rich, good-looking Milo and his cool, elegant family, and as she leans on the dumpster in the alley bleeding on her dowdy Burger Bar uniform, she is in shocked denial. The pregnancy is only one of Hannah's troubles. Her beloved father has died suddenly from a freak accident, and her mother has retreated into agoraphobia; Hannah must care for her feeble and self-absorbed Mama just when she needs mothering herself. When she hides in Milo's car and overhears him having sex with his old girlfriend, her world finally collapses. A psychotic break lands her in a mental hospital for juveniles, and she begins the long step-by-step process of putting the pieces of her life back together with the help of a compassionate young therapist.

Louise Plummer, whose previous young adult novels have been sparkling romantic comedies (The Unlikely Romance of Kate Bjorkman), here gets serious in a warm and engrossing story that carries the teen-pregnancy novel to new heights beyond the usual clichés. (Ages 12 and older) --Patty Campbell