The Downside of Being Up

A misunderstood teenager faces the ups and downs of puberty in this entertaining and heartwarming young adult novel. Thirteen-year-old Bobby Connor is a normal adolescent boy—at least he hopes he is—but nothing about him is normal: not his wacked-out family that includes a sister who hates him and a grandfather who picks navel mucus from his belly button every second Thursday of the month; not his best friend, Alfred, who brings pet cockroaches to school; and definitely not the reason he was almost expelled from school and his math teacher is out for the rest of the year. But when a new girl, a dream girl, an angel, Allison, comes to school, Bobby tries to hide all this, especially from Allison’s dad, the new math teacher who hates Bobby—maybe even more than Bobby’s sister does. No matter! Bobby’s over the moon because Allison has agreed to go to the Big Dance with him. But when Bobby is accused of stealing and banned from the Big Dance, everything starts to fall apart.