What Erika Wants

Drawing the line between what we want and what other people want for us.

A woman with a forehead full of acne scars and a New York edge to her voice crosses the courthouse floor with her hand out. "Erika? I'm your lawyer. Call me Jean. Can we talk?" You're fourteen, with a play to try out for, a crazy best friend with a ton of money, a boy whom you can't get out of your heart, and parents who hate each other and are dragging you through court in a custody case. You follow your lawyer to the elevator, and five minutes later, you're in her beat-up car and she's asking you who you are and what you want. Why tell her the truth when right now all you want is space and time to figure it out for yourself without hurting the people you love?

Written in alternating points-of-view, Bruce Clements's What Erika Wants is a sharp and disarmingly understated novel that charts the course of a caring and careworn teenager who is discovering that the first step to breaking free of a bad situation is to realize she's trapped in one.