Drawing a Blank: Or, How I Tried to Solve a Mystery, End a Feud, and Land the Girl of my Dreams -- Daniel Ehrenhaft & Trevor Ristow

Carlton Dunne the Fourth is the secretly teenaged author of Signy the Superbad, an indie comic strip available only in one tiny local newspaper.  (He has only corresponded with the editor of the paper through email, where Carlton poses as his own father, who is a super-busy architect.) 

There's some sneaking out of school, a kidnapping, a generations-old feud, a romance, lots of running around, a couple of plane flights, a po-dunk Comic Convention, breaking into buildings, and the plans for The Fortress of Eternal Life™.  And at least one Last Will and Testament.  The chapters are short (and have super-fun headings:  Chapter 12 -- Ths PSAT Word for "Big Chump"), the prose is interspersed with comics and bullet-pointed lists and footnotes and letters and e-mails. 

The pace bounces from breakneck action to introspective standstill and back again.  There's no middle ground.  But due to Craig's funny, self-deprecating and intelligent voice (and the short chapters) even the introspective bits are snappy.

All that said, I thought I would like it a lot more.  I mean, I liked it -- but I didn't LOOOOOOVE it.