Local Girls (1999) by Alice Hoffman

Let me say how much I love Alice Hoffman's writing!  Her prose is sublime and her insights into human nature are mature beyond her years.  In Local Girls she presents an ordinary tale of a family in an extraordinary way. Gretel is a teenage girl who keeps on living in spite of her mother's cancer, her parent's divorce and her brother 's descent into despair.  Her cousin, Margot, and her best friend, Jill, keep her balanced, in spite of their own difficulties. Themes of betrayal and love are explored with a backdrop of very realistic characters, good and bad.
 B