The Pursuit of Happiness

"Guilty pleasure?" my friend asked, nodding toward the small, pulpy paperback on my lap. I looked down and considered my book. The cover features a shot of a girl's bare legs standing in the surf, and--unmistakable to my friend and me, both in our late 20s--the MTV logo, which has been around for as long as we can remember, branding it like a cow.

"It would be if I felt guilty about it," I told her, and shrugged. Of course I understood that she assumed I'd feel guilty about reading something so obviously *fun*, but I don't, and it's not just because I write about this stuff for a living.

It's because some of it, as I went on to tell my snooty-books friend, is really very good.

*The Pursuit of Happiness* was a fine example to illustrate my point. Tara Altebrando's first young adult novel (she writes adult fiction under the name Tara McCarthy) is insightful, moving, and addictively readable.

Betsy (middle name Ross) and her 14-year-old brother Ben (middle name Franklin) are the middle-class South-Jersey kids of a photographer mom and-- no surprise here--a history prof. dad. But though the whole book is essentially about her, Betsy's mother never appears. The story opens on the day she dies.

While Betsy's mom was dying of breast cancer she urged her to find something she's passionate about in life. Those were, in fact, her last words to her daughter, and they ring in Betsy's ears all the time, even while she churns butter and talks in Early-American-speak at the colonial reenactment village where she works.

Working at Morrisville isn't her passion, she knows that much. She's not a natural at hamming it up colonial-style like James or Liza. Liza, who's in Betsy's class and, with her punked-out hair and frequent attendance in detention, has the reputation for being scary but turns out to be sophisticated, smart, and kind. James is the sexy "carpenter's apprentice" who's on his way to Princeton in the fall. The three of them become unlikely friends; James takes Betsy surfing and Liza teaches her to drive. There's something weird going on with James that Betsy can't quite figure out, but she soon start to like him anyway, as more than just a friend.

Unfortunately for Betsy, guy-weirdness is not her biggest problem. Things are grim at home, and her friends are dealing pretty badly with what she's going through. Through Betsy’s experience Altebrando captures beautifully just how exquisitely awful grieving is for teenagers. Every time she lets herself go and really cries, even when she's alone, she feels stupid. She also angrily interprets her mother's friends' reluctance to talk to her as their fear of bad luck, which is exactly how a grieving family feels (and which, as far as I'm concerned, is probably true).

Luckily, and to her surprise, Morrisville becomes a comfort, a place where Betsy can tuck herself into the safety of a fake life. It also turns out to be the source of her inspiration, and before summer’s end she discovers that she might be an artist. She likes James, really likes him, but it's that fire in her belly that will save her, if anything can. Maybe this is the passion her mother told her about.

Betsy tells us her story in the present tense, which gives it a sense of youthful immediacy, and her Flaming Lips references and clever uses of the word "supersized" lend it the ring of adolescent authenticity. In the end, all the little pieces of Betsy's life that summer come together in way that's hopeful but not Brady-perfect. Satisfying but still realistic: *The Pursuit of Happiness* walks that tightrope with the greatest of ease.

That's why I was so disheartened to find between its covers one of the worst production errors I've ever seen in a finished book. Betsy's childhood friend, Mary, is devoted to her cat, which is named Mittens but is referred to by another character, just once, as Muffin! Ugh. Don't tell me MTV couldn't afford the extra hour of a copyeditor's time that would have kept that mistake out of there.

But even that doesn't really matter. Altebrando's fiction speaks for itself, and I'm happy to find a good novel no matter what’s on the cover. Aren't you?