Metamorphosis: Junior Year

He''s a young artist obsessed with myths. But can he fix his own fate? Acclaimed author Betsy Franco and her talented son collaborate on a hip YA novel of "epic" proportions.

Life. Love. Death. Identity. Ovid''s got a lot on his mind, and he pours it all—as confessions, observations, narrative poems, and drawings—into the pages of a notebook. Inspired by his namesake, he wryly records his classmates'' dramas as modern-day Roman mythology. There''s Sophie and Caleb, the Psyche and Cupid of cyber-couples; poetic Paula, who pursues filmmaker Franny like Apollo chasing Daphne; and graphic novelist Duwayne, a Proserpina shuttling between divorced parents. Meanwhile, Ovid hides his own Olympian struggles: his meth addict sister Thena has run off, leaving him with a suffocating home life and a disturbing secret. In her striking YA debut, Betsy Franco introduces an expressive soul with a heartbreakingly authentic voice.