Claire McKenzie is your average high-schooler. Pretty, popular, on the cheerleading squad, and nice to everyone, even the losers at her school. That’s your first impression of Claire, and to be honest, she doesn’t really seem that different from all the countless other bubble-headed pretty girls that tend to be the main characters of female teen fiction.

However, there’s more to Claire than just the fear that she’s going to get kicked off the cheerleading squad for being too tall. She’s a cancer survivor, the “leukemia girl” according to another girl at her school. Claire is constantly worried that her leukemia is going to return, and send her already fragile mother over the edge. She also suffers from an eating disorder, brought on by a callous comment made by the cheer captain. Claire’s nightmares consist of girls cutting (or mutilating themselves in some other way) various parts of their body with razor blades. To top it all off, Claire doesn’t have anyone to talk over these issues with, since all of her friends are your typical small-island-in-the-middle-of-nowhere teenage girls, and her mother is a drunk. Basically, Claire is in a lot of trouble.

Enter Lani Garver. Who is neither a boy or a girl, and is neither gay nor straight. Those are all boxes, and Lani Garver does not like being put in boxes. We don’t know how old he is (even though his true gender remains a mystery for the entire book, Claire refers to Lani as a boy), or where he lived before he came to Hackett Island. We as the readers know next to nothing about Lani, but that is what makes the books so intriguing. After all, we don’t even known if Lani Garver is human.

The plot is rather simplistic. Lani is going to help Claire. He is going to help her with all the issues and problems that she is facing; everything from gaining more confidence in who she is, to beating her eating disorder. Which is a sweet idea, because wouldn’t we all like someone smart and kind to come in and save us from our problems? There’s nothing complex about the plot, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. An unsophisticated plot is what makes this book a fast and easy read. No, it’s not the plot that makes this book stand out. It’s the social struggles that are addressed through the eyes of one teenager girl as she grows up from a worried, self-obsessed little girl into a strong, confident young woman who isn’t afraid to show her angry side.

We read about hate crimes, living with HIV, living as a cancer survivor, being openly gay, and how having an androgynus appearance can greatly affect the way you are treated. This book is amazing because it tackles all these problems (and then some) with a cheerful, calm voice that never makes you feel ashamed or embarrassed: the voice of Lani. The characters of the book, like the plot, are relatively simple to understand. Claire, the main heroine of the story, changes and shifts from a vapid girl into a world-aware young woman. The change is a bit clunky and forced in some places, but it is better than nothing.

I related to Claire as a character. She was worried about the way she looked, but also worried about the way people who don’t conform to society’s ideals are treated. She is a girl who hits boys back when she is angry. I’ve never read about a character quite like Claire, and that may be the entire reason that I liked her. She is realistic, more realistic than the shallow teenage girls that most modern authors write. Of course, you can’t help but fall in love with Lani. He’s perfect, too perfect, but that is why you as the reader are drawn to him. The brilliant mix of street-wise and naive, someone who can make you furious one minute, and then have you smiling the next. The kind of person we all dream about, who will appear in our lives like a guardian angel, staying with us through thick and thin. He, unlike Claire, is a completely unrealistic character.

But that is the point. Lani isn’t supposed to be realistic. He is supposed to be untouched by worldly matters, ethereal  almost. His calm assurance that everything will be okay leaves you wondered just what was Lani Garver anyway?

I liked this book for a number of reasons, mostly just because it was a refreshing change of pace from youth books aimed at teenager girls that have titles like ‘Rhymes With Stupid’, or ‘The Clique’. The plot could have used a bit of work, and the ending should be expected by the time you get to the half-way point. But the characters are real, and the issues faced by the characters are also real. I would recommend this book to anyone and everyone, regardless of who they are. Claire tackles issues that, on some level, all of us deal with during the trying teenager years.. And even if we can’t all have a Lani Garver standing next to us, patiently holding our hand through each ordeal, then at least we can read about such things in a book.