"Sean Griswold's Head" by Lindsey Leavitt

288 pages

Fifteen-year-old Payton Gritas has a pretty good life. She gets stellar grades, she's a star on the basketball team, and she has fun parents and a fabulous best friend. Then her world is turned upside down when she finds out that her dad has multiple sclerosis and her whole family has known for six months and not told her. Payton, feeling betrayed and fearful, begins to rebel for the first time ever. Her guidance counselor at school decides that she needs a focus object--an item to focus her emotions on.

Sean Griswold has been sitting in front of Payton in classes since third grade because alphabetically his name is right before hers. She decides that his head will be as good a focus object as any since she spends so much time staring at it. When she begins to pay attention to Sean's head (and, consequently, the rest of him), she realizes that there's a lot she doesn't know about him. As she becomes more intrigued by him and gets to know him better, he helps with some of the problems in her life...but also unknowingly creates different problems.

I usually don't like teen romances because I don't care for romance in general and the teen ones are often even more overdramatic and angsty. This one has some substance, though, and I enjoyed it. The romance is there, but a big part of the story revolves around Payton figuring out how to deal with a big problem in her once-perfect family. It's very predictable, but the characters charmed me so much that I didn't care. I loved Payton's voice and I adored Sean, Payton's parents, her brother Trent, and her friend Jac. All of them cracked me up throughout the story. My biggest problem with this book is the girly cover and the hearts all over the place on the pages. For one thing, I felt silly reading it (but that's probably just me) and it made the predictable outcome even more predictable. Definitely worth the embarrassment, though :)