Izzy is the problem-ridden child of the family. Her sister Carolyn is a musical prodigy and the star of her mother's eye. Her mother is running a losing campaign for mayor, but it's making her a little crazy. Every time Izzy loses her temper and causes trouble, her mother views it first from the lens of how it will make her look in her quest to become mayor. Izzy's father is the police chief, and has been helping Izzy to train to join the Paddlers, the town's premier junior rowing team.

Izzy's story revolves mostly around her relationships with her classmates (who torment her pretty regularly) and her family (where the biggest power player is her disappointed mother). In addition to her immediate family, Izzy lives with her Aunt Mildred and her Grandma Bertie, elderly twins with a fondness for bickering. In essence, Izzy's is a life full of confrontation, but internally, Izzy is compassionate, emotional, and lonely. When she has to participate in a mail order charm school to improve upon her bad habits, it seems like life is only going to become more difficult, until the tasks she is assigned start to change her life in all sorts of unexpected ways (not necessarily improvements as much as complications, but changes nonetheless).

Izzy grows a lot in the course of the narrative, but any reader will surely be rooting for her from the start. I was very impressed with this. It was well presented and Izzy was both likeable and complicated. This is definitely a text worth adding to your collection. I will be recommending it to many of my realistic fiction fans.

This book tries for magical realism and misadventure but comes across more painful and embarrassing. THe direction is obvious and the narration isn't charming enough to push me through.