Fact of Life #31 -- Denise Vega

16-year-old Kat is known to her classmates as Yoga Girl because she occasionally does yoga in the school hallway. At school, she hangs out with her best friend Christy (known as Hat Girl to most of the other students), studies the popular crowd and lusts after Manny Cruz, who she's had a crush on since seventh grade. Outside of school, she is an artist, works part-time as a receptionist in her mother's midwifery, and is training for a women's Triathlon.

When her mother calls her in to assist at a birth (none of the regulars were available), Kat is terrified and elated—she's wanted to witness a birth for a very long time. After the disastrous (in her mind, and apparently in her mother's mind) episode is over, Kat decides to leave her job at Abra's Midwifery.

Not long after telling Abra that she's out, Abra gives Kat two notebooks. The first one is Abra's old notebook from her doula and midwifery training. The second one is blank, and is meant to be Kat's. But, as Kat isn't planning to continue working at the Midwifery, she turns her notebook into a Book of Facts. The facts of her life.

I really liked this one. I admit it, I was surprised. See, when I read the inside flap and it mentioned that Kat did yoga in the school hallway, it made me think of Stargirl*. Which, for me, is not a good thing. But I went ahead and read the book, because the rest of the flap copy didn't sound even remotely Stargirl-y.

The thing is, Kat does yoga in the school hallway to center herself. She does it because it makes her feel better. She doesn't try to convince anyone to do it with her, and she doesn't do it for attention. If people give her a hard time, she doesn't get all hurt and tortured about it—she says something snarky and moves on.

So, yes. It was Kat's voice that made the book especially enjoyable for me:

If Manny was within a fifty-yard radius, he was usually in my crosshairs within ten seconds.

I sucked as a birth assistant but would make a decent sniper. Go figure.

And I loved this line:

I hustled down the hall to cafeteria to eat with Christy and her extra appendage—I mean boyfriend—Glen. When I got to the table, Christy was there, Glenless.

There's a TON going on: huge stuff between Kat and her mother, three romances (between three different couples), teen pregnancy, peer pressure and pressure from parents, as well as general issues surrounding popularity, friendship and family. Fact of Life #31 made me think a bit of Joan Bauer's books, except instead of a heroine with one huge talent/interest, Kat is a heroine with three huge talent/interests. 

It's not perfect—there was so much going on and so many characters that some of it felt a little two-dimensional and sometimes there was a bit more Tell than Show—but it's enjoyable, and I'll be recommending it to my avid realistic fiction readers.

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*Because, while I don't remember Stargirl actually doing yoga in the school hallway, it's something that she would have done. Annoyingly.