Fifteen-year-old Jes is having one heck of a summer. Her mother is consumed by plans for her upcoming second marriage; her best girlfriend is totally engrossed with a hunky new boyfriend; and her best buddy seems to be trying to move their games of one-on-one from the basketball court to the bedroom.Things can’t get any worse as far as Jes is concerned when Angela, her stepsister-to-be, enters the picture, creating even more havoc with her movie-star good looks, California tan, and ingratiating smile.

Gayle Friesen’s first teen novel, Janey’s Girl, won a Canadian Library Association Award, an auspicious start to her career. But her third novel for teens, Losing Forever, is a disappointment, every bit as muddled as its young heroine. Lacking crispness, the story is mired in the morass of what Friesen clearly sees as teen issues – marital infidelity, divorce, remarriage, suicide, body image, self-esteem, stepfamilies, parental neglect, and juvenile delinquency, among others. It doesn’t help that Friesen’s characters are riddled with clichés – for example, evil stepsister Angela is a nasty boyfriend-stealing, shoplifting teen with deep-seated problems.

Stripped down to a single storyline, Losing Forever is an adequate novel about a teen dealing with mixed feelings over her mother’s remarriage. But Jes ultimately doesn’t deal with issues; she’s always reacting to what’s happening around her, and readers are unlikely to get a strong sense of her character.