Title: Ballads of Suburbia
Author: Stephanie Kuehnert
Publisher: MTV Books
Length: 368
Age group/reading level: Young Adult (14+)

Summary: The summer before her senior year of high school, Kara nearly died from a heroin overdose. As a freshman, when she moved away from her best friend and then her family fell apart, Kara turned to music, booze, drugs, self-injury, and bad-boy Adrian to make everything better. Between all the parties and concerts, her friends collected their heartbreaking ballads of the moments that defined them. After four years away from her friends and family, Kara returns to Oak Park to confront her past, and to finally write her own ballad.

Review: Stephanie Kuehnert knows angst. She knows how to write angst-y teens. From what I’ve read in interviews and what-have-you, she has first hand experience with cutting, and it definitely shows in how she handles the topic. The ballads, written in first-person from the perspective of Kara’s various friends, all have a different voice, and could easily have been actually written by different people. She deftly weaves them in at the most appropriate moments; they don’t break the narrative, and they give the characters far more depth than just the portrayal of them from Kara’s perspective. Kuehnert does a fine job dealing with every teenage social problem from sex to drugs to abuse to cutting to alcohol…. you name it, Kuehnert confronts, and effortlessly tackles, it.

One problem I had with the book was all the oblivious parents. I mean, they’re all conveniently explained away. And for some of the characters, it makes sense that their parents don’t really care, but the excuse given for Kara’s mom (and Maya’s dad for that matter) not noticing or caring doesn’t really fly for me. Another issue I had with the book was that it was set in 1994-1995, and then, when Kara returns, in 1999. I’m not sure why exactly, other than to make sense of the choice of music Kuehnert picked as the anthems of the characters, bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Nirvana, Jane’s Addiction, etc. Other than that minor detail, all the events that happened could’ve easily been present day, with Kara’s return home taking place in 2009.

As for the design of the book, I’m actually quite impressed. MTV did a nice job, including resources to get help if you struggle with any of these problems, some discussion questions, and an interview with Kuehnert about her experiences with these topics. The cover is pretty good, once you realize that the teens in question hang out at a park most of the time. I have an advanced copy so I’m not quite sure if things are different or not, but the interior is pretty nice too, with the typeface of the ballads different from the rest of the story, and therefore easily distinguished.