Everything about this debut novel is fresh, from the voice to the characters to the story. Couched in the expoits of a lesbian teenager taking to the road--don't let this scare you away, fellow straight readers!--is a remarkable exporation of what it means to love, and to want to be loved, delivered from the point of view of the devastatingly wise 17-year-old "Girl," with whom anyone with a heart can identify. ("All I wanted was a memory of somebody. When you had a mother you'd never really seen, it made you stuck on that. It made me recognize the way that life and history and families are filled with empty spaces. I saw them and felt them all the time.") ( )