SHRIMP
Rachel Cohn
Simon & Schuster
Fiction
ISBN: 0689866127
288 pages

• Read an Excerpt

In Rachel Cohn's immensely popular novel GINGERBREAD, seventeen-year-old Cyd Charisse spent the summer with her biological dad and his family in New York City. During her stay, Cyd had to change her definition of family and come to terms with the secrets in her own past.

In SHRIMP, the long-awaited sequel to GINGERBREAD, Cyd returns home to San Francisco just in time for her senior year of high school. Much to her parents' dismay, Cyd's top priority is not getting good grades and filling out college applications; it's hooking back up with Shrimp, the surfer boy who broke her heart.

This time around, however, Cyd has a new attitude. She's outgrown Gingerbread, her rag doll companion, and is ready for a more adult outlook. She knows that Shrimp is her destiny, but she's not going to obsess about him. She's even making new friends and pursuing her own interests in cooking. And when Cyd and Shrimp do get back together, they take it slow, with no "sexpectations." As graduation approaches and her relationship with Shrimp becomes more intense, though, Cyd must decide just what kind of future she wants with --- or without --- Shrimp.

As in her earlier book about the fiercely opinionated, emotionally vulnerable Cyd Charisse, Rachel Cohn tells her story in a hip, sassy voice, with a narrative that is chock full of slang and pop culture references. Although these references might not hold up over time, Cyd's own story of self-discovery certainly will. The novel is called SHRIMP and focuses on Cyd's attempts to reconnect with her lost love, so readers discover only gradually that the novel is more about Cyd's own growing up than it is about her quest for the perfect boy.

   --- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

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