My worst date

In Miami, where the sun always shines and the people are always fabulous, sixteen-year-old Hugo is ready for something more than school and hanging out. When he meets Glenn Elliot Paul, he thinks that, maybe, he had found something to look forward to. Hugo gets more than he bargained for, however, when he realizes that the man of his dreams is also dating his mother.

Hugo, the hero of this uneven and dispiriting first novel, is a 16-year-old Miami high-school student whose first real affair is with Glenn, his mother's boyfriend?a premise that a gifted novelist could spin into giddy farce, erotic fiction or a coming-of-age tale. Leddick attempts all three?with more contrivances than so slender a novel can support. Hugo moonlights as a stripper, then becomes a Versace model and an actor in a TV pilot about the South Beach scene?all while maintaining a solid GPA, continuing a secret affair with Glenn and shopping around for a college in New York. Hugo's long-absent father, debauched and jaded, shows up late in the novel, as does Hurricane Andrew, though neither episode provides the dramatic payoff the reader expects. Leddick's talent in evoking the voice of a sensitive adolescent is evident at the outset, but the convolutions of the plot, narrated by different characters in alternating chapters, defeat any patient exploration of Hugo's inner life. More disturbingly, Hugo is ultimately little more than a monstrous fantasy figure?a nubile adolescent whose libido triumphs over any ethical qualms either he or his adult lover might have about their relationship. My Worst Date is a humorous and insightful novel--an innovative take on the traditional coming-of-age novel.