Helaine Becker

How to Survive Absolutely Anything Helaine Becker Original edition

Fourteen-year-old Bonnie has started a new advice blog with her best friend Jen, dedicated to surviving the horrors of middle school. In the middle of an enormous family, with ?half sibs, step-sibs, half-step-step sibs, half sibs of your half sibs who are not your sibs at all but somehow wind up barfing on your bed anyway?, she escapes to record her private thoughts in an ?offline? journal as well. But trouble looms for Bonnie in the form of Carter, her new stepbrother, with whom she has a strained relationship.  And Jen has to deal with her mother Tina, a nurse battling an alcohol addiction, and caring for her baby sister Julia?her father died shortly before Julia was born, after a heated argument over Tina drinking while pregnant. Carter invites Bonnie and Jen to a Friday-night dance to try and mend bridges. At the dance Bonnie meets ?Beautiful Boy?: Paolo from Turin, who boards at Carter?s school. But it turns out that Carter may have an unexpected crush on Bonnie, and Tina ends up falling back into drinking after a rough few days at work. While Jen copes and takes care of Julia at Bonnie?s house, Bonnie wrestles with the problem of Carter and tries to get in touch with Paolo?who isn?t returning her calls.  Carter reveals that Dan, a fellow boy at the dance, had a crush on Bonnie the entire time, and Jen reveals that she has a crush on Carter, and Bonnie nearly falls apart in the resulting confusion. The story ends with Bonnie starting a new relationship with Dan, on better terms with Carter, a little wiser and older from her mistakes.