Beige » (Reprint)

Cecil Castellucci is an author, filmmaker, actress, and singer-songwriter. She says, "When I first moved to Los Angeles from Montreal, I wrote in a café owned by Eric Melvin from NOFX, had Thanksgiving dinner with Tim Armstrong from Rancid, and had my taxes done by a guy who was in the Circle Jerks. Everyone was So-Cal Punk crazy and I felt so . . . beige. I wondered what it would be like to grow up around adults that cool, especially if you were plopped into that scene when it wasn’t yours." She lives in Los Angeles.

Dad’s an aging L.A. punk rocker known as the Rat. Daughter’s a buttoned-up neat freak who’d rather be anywhere else. Can this summer be saved?

Now that she’s exiled from Canada to sunny Los Angeles, Katy figures she’ll bury her nose in a book and ignore the fact that she’s spending two weeks with her father — punk name: the Rat — a recovered addict and drummer for the famously infamous band Suck. Even though Katy doesn’t want to be there, even though she feels abandoned by her mom, even though the Rat’s place is a mess and he’s not like anything she’d call a father, Katy won’t make a fuss. After all, she is a nice girl, a girl who is quiet and polite, a girl who smiles, a girl who is, well, beige. Or is she? From the author of BOY PROOF and THE QUEEN OF COOL comes an edgy new L.A. novel full of humor, heart, and music.

Publishers Weekly

When Katy's mother leaves for an archeological expedition, the Canadian teen is sent to live with her father-a legendary punk rock drummer and recovering drug addict nicknamed The Rat-in Los Angeles. Katy knows she is "incurably uncool," and does not connect with her father's lifestyle or his music; it's Lake, the daughter of the lead singer in her father's band who calls her "beige," a nickname Katy adopts. But she slowly finds a place in their world, affecting them with her kindness and "learning to be loud" so she can release some of her bottled anger. The plot holds few surprises: she gets to know her father-who really does try hard to understand her, even after she tells him "I guess I don't really like music that much"-and she begins to see another side of her mother, who was also an addict. Castellucci (The Queen of Cool) has rendered Katy as a believable character, and teens will sympathize with her as she finally starts to reveal her true feelings. The book seems scripted at times, but readers will certainly learn something about the history of punk music and, like Katy, can consider what it means to "live on [one's] own terms without conforming to society's expectations." Ages 14-up. (June)