10th grader Amy Verdino has to adjust to her parents' divorce, fickle friends, a changing body, and -- to her everlasting horror -- the supposed importance of a math class taught by the geekiest teacher in North America. What happens in the spring of her sophomore year surprises everyone, as self-absorption is punctured by an unexpected source. The author of PERMISSION SLIPS offers a compassionately funny look at one adolescent's unconventional path to wholeness in his first young adult novel.