Ada is 16. She lives in San Francisco, California with her family: her mother, step-father, elder sister Afton and her 5 year old sister Abby. As the novel opens, she is at her boyfriend Leo’s place and he says they have the whole night along, so they can have sex. It will be their first time. But as they start getting hot and heavy, she is busy thinking about  whether she really wants to do it and what he means when he says he loves her. So when he produces the condom, she says she has changed her mind. Soon she leaves to go home, and she starts drawing. Ada is an artist so depicting significant moments is a way for her to process her feelings. 

Things don’t go well though, and soon Ada breaks up with Leo. WIthin a couple of days she and her family go on holiday to Hawaii for a week, since her surgeon mother has a conference there. Ada decides that she does not want to be a virgin any more, and sets out to find someone to have sex with. This turns out to be more difficult than you might imagine.

The deal with the Hawaii trip is that Ada and her family are surrounded by people who always go to the surgery conference every year, so they all know each other. Ada’s mother tells her to babysit Abby. The conference people are gossipy and all know each other’s business. Also Ada and Afton get into a fight so they are not helping each other out. To make things worse, Ada’s parents seem like they are not getting on. 

Of course, things work out in the end. Cynthia Hand does a nice job of showing Ada’s family, her choices as a young woman, and dilemmas concerning sex. The sexual scenes are not explicit but they are frank. The story is entertaining, and Ada is an appealing character. There are some plot twists that are heavy handed and obvious. 

The performance of the audiobook by Joy Osmanski separates out all the characters well and gives them life. 

Christian Perring is editor of Metapsychology Online

Categories: Fiction, AudioBooks

Keywords: YA literature, sex, girls