this is a really good book! it has a very interesting plot that keeps you reading. you will laugh when dusty laughs, and cry when he crys. norma klein does an exellent job of making you feel just like the characters do, making you expreience all of their complex emotions. i would recomend this book to anyone!

I READ THIS WHEN I WAS 15. IT WAS ONE OF THE MORE BETTER BOOKS THAT HAVE RELATIONSHIPS IN THEM THAT I HAVE READ. IT ALSO HAS SOMETHING REALISTIC IN IT. IT'S A VERY GOOD BOOK TO READ.

This book is about the chaotic life of Bernie, an eleven year-old Japanese-American girl. Bernie gets to adopt a little sister from Vietnam named Suzu. She gets to go visit her dad in San Diego, California. He is going to marry Peggy. Bernie comes back to New York to find out that Gabe, her step dad, has left and won't be coming back. She, Suzu, and her mom go visit her dad in California and find out that Peggy had a baby boy named Jacob. When they get back to their house, they find Gabe and his daughter awaiting them at their house.

I liked this book because it wasn't like Bernie had a perfect family and a perfect life and everything turned out her way. It shows that life isn't perfect or fair. This book makes me feel very thankful for my own family and what I have. It tells you that there is a solution to everything, no matter how big the problem. It did get a little confusing at times, with everyone arguing and there are a lot of characters. I would recommend this book to both boys and girls ages 10 and up. If you think you have family problems, check out this book.

This is another novel in the category of the "young teens fall in love and have sex too soon without consequences". On the plus side, the characterizations and humorous scenes are better than the ones found in Judy Blume's "Forever". On the minus side, Norma Klein does not really explore the issue of responsible sex in any serious way. She simply has her leading character, a 14-year-old dazzling redheaded girl with the nickname of "Rusty", ask her parents for a diaphragm as a Christmas gift. Yes, really.

This novel, like "Forever", also begins with an attention-grabbing chapter, but Klein doesn't blatantly attempt to hook the reader with the first sentence. Tatiana Engelberg, aka Rusty, states that "Daddy was LIVID at breakfast". By the time we get around to discovering the reason, which she puts quite bluntly, we realize that this is indeed a steamy sex novel that somehow got categorized as a YA simply because the character is 14 years old. Tatiana is unintentionally amusing because in spite of her sexual experience and poise, she is a wide-eyed innocent in her personality. She is always upfront and tries to be tactful, since she is sensitive and worries about hurting people's feelings. Her sister, Deel, for instance, is harsh and constantly puts her down, but the reason for that becomes apparent as soon as Rusty's parents are introduced. Their favoritism of Tatiana is so painfully obvious that Delia can't help but feel left out.

The novel is fine when Klein sticks to portraying Rusty's family, who are decidedly a whimsical bunch, guaranteed to drive each other crazy. Her father, Lionel, is a serious, stern idealist with such a strong fixation for Rusty that there's a nearly incestuous undertone to their relationship, which is downright creepy during the scenes when they discuss Rusty's sex life. The mother, Amanda, is the direct opposite: a "Peter Pan" woman who never grew up, who hated her gawky teen years, and wants to relive them through Tatiana by being excessively permissive. Delia, as mentioned, is the bitter older sister, the "plain" one who's not as pretty or smart as Tatiana, and is constantly reminded of it.

The realism of Tat's eccentric family injects a spark in the novel that her relationship with her boyfriend, Joshua, lacks. True, Tatiana and Joshua have their "love" and "hate" phases, and often quarrel, but it's relatively inconsequential and almost always involves some "big misunderstanding". It's "Three's Company" meets "90210". Also, Rusty and Joshua often fall into the "Judy Blume" trap of analyzing sex to death (how many times do we have to hear about female orgasms?). Still, they do seem to share a genuine friendship and are a more believable couple than the sketchy "Katherine" and "Michael" from "Forever".

Klein's fatal mistake is to inject a completely unnecessary ingredient into the mix: stardom. In Chapter 4, Rusty mentions in a "by the way" aside that she just starred in a movie about a young seductive nymphet and bared her breasts to boot. This is no doubt one of the "good parts" a young teen looks for, but it completely throws off the story, which had been moving along steadily up to that point. Suddenly, the novel is about Tat's movie, her stardom, and her embarrassment over being touted as the "new Brooke Shields". Yeah, yeah, go cry in someone else's coffee, honey.

The irony of the "movie" plot is that it brings nothing to the story. Adults will enjoy the dialogue between Amanda and Lionel, who are such a mismatched pair that one wonders where the attraction was in the first place. Younger teens will read for the byplay between Tatiana and Joshua. However, the only relevant element in the "stardom" angle was Tatiana's sad realization that she's a mere sex commodity in the movie business, rather than the intelligent, sensuous actress that her reviews would indicate. Everything else--the "jealousy" themes and so forth--could have been done without making Rusty a teen movie queen. It's a silly waste of a plot. It's also quite bothersome the way that not only Rusty, but her parents, show very little responsibility when it comes to Rusty's sexual relationship. Her father demands abstinence from Rusty after the fact, although he would condone his older daughter (age 16) "going all the way" even though she has no steady boyfriend! Amanda, of course, provides Tat with the "key to the kingdom" and even goes out of her way to turn her home into a hotel "while Lionel's away". In general, she behaves like a rebellious child in order to bond with her daughter. She remains immature and flighty to the end. Nevertheless, I'm sure most people will find this novel far more entertaining than the bland "stick figure" characters in "Forever".

I remember reading this in 8th grade - i loved it so much i photocopied it from the library. The nice thing about this book is that although Tatiana was so different from me or from any of my friends, I could totally identify with what she was feeling - especially her utter confusion in the grown-up world. Though this isn't a suspensenovel, I was surprised every page, by the delicate and unique emotions of the characters - they were astounded by common things and calm during turbulent events - yet you could understand them. The book brought different blends of emotions to the world of teenage literature. Very much reccomended

In reading her two novels "Domestic Arrangements" and "Give Me One Good Reason" I found Klein to be a generally talented writer.

She writes in a style that minimizes drama--perhaps even making it seem as if her characters lack an ability to possess deeper emotions. Her characters' lives are not too unusually different from an average Jane Doe's--at least it shouldn't make that much of a difference (which is what I suspect the author is trying to say).

Within the context of these slightly unusual situations--a single woman planning a pregnancy which will systematically seclude the bisexual father from the baby's life ("Give me...") and a fourteen year old girl baring it for a movie roll and having sex with her parents' (at least her mom's) blessing ("Domestic...")--Klein tries to portray the reality of her characters. Amidst these complications, her characters are struggling with your more normal problems: falling in love, growing up, coming to terms with your parent's divorce, etc. With Klein's low-key almost nonchalant style of writing, it's not too difficult to relate to the characters or their situations. In her own way, she succeed in delivering the message that strange things happen to normal people-- and unfortunate things, to normal families.

I liked the book and it was easy to read it. I couldn't put it down. But this book contains some things that I can't agree with. For example, when girl Lesly (I that was her name) got pregnant she had an abortion. It tells how easy it was and that it was something unimportant. I mean it teaches children wrong thing. It tells how good it is to have sexual affairs before marriage. And many characters in the book just tell how much they want to be sexually involved. All I want to say is that books should contain good morals and values that will be passed on to the next generation.

Obstensibly the story of twins who start a restaurant to keep busy during summer vacation, it's also coping with a father having a mid-life crisis and a brother who isn't as perfect as he seems.

Norma Klein is one of the most important authors of Y/A fiction since Judy Blume. Her books realistically portray the lives of young women and men, and are entertaining as well. It's Not What You Expect is no exception. It is a wonderfully told story of a summer in the lives of two twins who are adjusting to the facts about their parents and life in general. The fact that the book depicts an abortion in a matter-of-fact way is unusual, but realistic and affirming to many women. Klein shows that abortion is not necessarily a traumatic experience as many anti-choicers would have people believe. Anyway, it is only one aspect of this entertaining book. I'm only sorry that it's out of print. Seek it, and any other Norma Klein books out in used bookstores and on Amazon.com. Her books are worthwhile and even challenging depictions of the lives of realistic young people. Another reviewer is obviously disturbed by the sexual content of the book, but needs to join the real world. Teens have sex-the important thing is to help them make good decisions about sex, not to try to prevent them from reading about it.

Again, this is another of my least favorite books by Norma Klein. I was expecting a romance, but I found this book mostly dealt with family problems. Although that is just an important subject matter, it wasn't why I was reading the book. If this is going to be your first Norma Klein book, pick another.

When I first read this book about seven years ago I could really relate to the main character. We had the same worries and concerns. The story focuses on the family and how a parents relationship affects a child. I love the honest portrayal of family life in this book. Ms. Klein's characters always very real. I always loved her work and this is one of her best.

This novel is somewhat like a more sober (and less funny) version of "Same Time, Next Year", since it deals with a man and a woman (both married to others) who meet twice a week (as opposed to once a year) to indulge in their "exciting" fling. The story is told through the viewpoints of 3 different people: Benjy (yes, really), a frustrated husband reliving his teenage past; Marilyn, the restless suburban housewife; and Marilyn's husband Mo, who is painfully aware of the affair, but has had dalliances of his own long before Marilyn strayed.

Mo is easily the most entertaining to read, since he is a macho clod of a man who fancies himself an expert on women. Actually, he is amazingly unobservant. For instance, he fails to notice that one of his conquests has been in love with him for nearly 20 years; he also misses a basic fact involving the woman's heritage. Both his wife and teenage son pick up on these things instantly. Also, his heart is in the right place when he suggests that Marilyn needs to get a job to occupy herself, but his naive assumption that Marilyn (unlike himself) will be too busy to continue her fling is all too typical. Mo is not the sensitive, nurturing type by a long shot, and his hard-edged cynicism is about the only thing that makes this novel worth the long read.

Marilyn is as flighty as Mo's description, and even her narration of how she and Benjy "just happened" to jump into bed together is unconvincing. It reads like a silly screenplay...picnics and beer lead to sex, which leads to...LOVE. Which, of course, prompts them to do it on a regular basis, even though they live in the same town and have 6 kids between them. Marilyn seems to crave sensitivity, which Mo definitely lacks, but at the beginning of the book, she is also lonely and has no close friends in the same city. This, somehow, escalates into an off-and-on "romance" with a man she was not even attracted to at first meeting.

Benjy's chapters are easily the most boring to read; his high-toned "professor-speak" and rambling, nearly incoherent sentences make it a virtual chore to get through a single paragraph. Also, his simplistic view that his lust for Marilyn is an addiction "like overeating" is rather irritating, given his proclamations of love for her. We never learn exactly what is wrong with the relationship between him and his wife, Becky; apparently, we're supposed to accept that Becky is too "frowsy", "pregnant" and "big sisterly" to turn him on. Becky, you see, is a baby machine. So why'd he marry her? Do people just marry for looks now? Stupid stupid stupid. Likewise, Marilyn indicates that Mo's affairs throughout their marriage made her "feel bad sometimes", but Miss Passive-Aggressive wouldn't dream of actually SAYING any of this to her lusty husband. At the end of the book, I felt none of the emotions I was supposed to feel--I just thought, "Do these people DESERVE EACH OTHER or what?" Norma Klein has done much better. Read "The World As It Is" instead; it's a horrifying and sometimes twistedly humorous look at life in a mental hospital.