Fif­teen-year-old Alyssa Bon­dar lives in a Russ­ian Jew­ish immi­grant com­mu­ni­ty in New Jer­sey where she is deal­ing with the typ­i­cal teenage issues of boys and pop­u­lar­i­ty along with the intense dif­fi­cul­ties of her mother’s alco­holism. Clean­ing her mom’s mess has become ​“incon­ve­nient” and her dad is in denial about the prob­lem. The mes­sage of how a teenag­er can try to deal mature­ly with an alco­holic par­ent is well done. But while the nov­el is a seri­ous explo­ration of an immi­grant com­mu­ni­ty and of a family’s dynam­ics, the author gets bogged down deal­ing with Alyssa’s run of the mill high school prob­lems with boys and her desire to run with the pop­u­lar crowd. This nov­el is clear­ly writ­ten for old­er teen read­ers due to some scenes of sex­u­al­i­ty, such as when an evening sleep­over becomes an oppor­tu­ni­ty for Alyssa and her best friend to video­tape them­selves dressed up in lin­gerie. Descrip­tions of teenage drink­ing, mar­i­jua­na use and sex­u­al explo­ration may feel gra­tu­itu­ous to some read­ers. Ages 15 and up.