The Tribes of Palos Verdes: A Novel
YA?Medina Mason, Midwestern transplant to the surf and high-rolling economy of Southern California, narrates this first novel by a promising young author. The teen struggles with her former fashion-model mother who despises Medina's slenderness while eating herself into oblivion; a twin brother who sinks lower and lower into his attachment to grass and pills because of his mother's neurotic attachment to him; an absent father who doesn't hear his daughter's pleas for help; and her own maturing relationships with guys. The harsh and superficial exchanges among individuals ring true: Medina inhabits a world where surf is the only reliable power, a power that can be understood at least as well as the adults in her life. She divides her peers into "tribes"?e.g., the towel girls (perfectly formed young women who never leave their beach towels), the "bottomfeeders" (lowlife guys who sell drugs on the beach and use strong-arm tactics to extract payment)?but the microcosm of her own family occupies most of her emotional energy and readers' attention. Teens living east of California will not find Medina's world attractive and may wonder if that's all there is to the fabled land of surf. Her family, however, could live?and attempt to destroy one another?anywhere.?Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CACopyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.