Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpren

[Shelly Fields]

My choice for Best Books for Young Adults is “Into the Wild Nerd Yonder” by Julie Halpern.
This book is a light-hearted coming of age novel about a high school sophomore named Jessie Sloan. Jessie is in search of new friends and a place to belong. Her two best friends, Bizza and Char have changed, and in Jessie’s opinion, not for the better. Her friends “go punk” and start hanging around Jessie’s punk older brother, who is in a band. To make matters worse, Bizza pursues Jessie’s long-time crush, Van (who is also “punk”). Jessie learns through the grapevine that Bizza performed oral sex on Van at a party and contracted gonorrhea in the process (not a rumor, she actually did). Feeling used and betrayed, Jessie sets out to find new friends and herself in the process. She ends up with the Dungeons and Dragons crowd (the ultimate nerds) and falls for one of them named Henry. She frets over being labeled a “nerd” but realizes the friends she makes are more important than being labeled a nerd so she sets off Into the Wild Nerd Yonder.
This book could be the manuscript for the high school experience for the way it shows how friendships grow and sometimes die, high school cliques, teen sex, and the way teenagers define and redefine themselves.
The YA reader faces these same challenges and will feel a connection to the characters. Jessie is a normal teen who experiences normal high school problems. How many of us can relate to that?
I would definitely recommend this book for the young adult reader. It is set in high school but I would recommend it for the 8th grade reader and up. I think it will benefit the junior high reader because she/he can see what they have to look forward too when getting to high school.

Here is a link to the author's website: http://www.juliehalpern.com/nerd.html