Remember when teen fiction was about unrequited love, troubles at school, and family problems? Mosh Pit covers the territory, but readers are in for quite a ride.

Simone (AKA Freaky, because of her six-inch green Mohawk) has been in love with Cherry since Grade 7. Then Cherry quits high school and falls for a dreadlocked drug dealer. At first the friends double-date: Cherry and Vincent, Simone and Vincent’s Rottweiler pup. Cherry and Simone keep in touch. Cherry lands them a job together on the Wrestleshemania porno website, but Cherry doesn’t show up and Simone has to wrestle with herself. Soon (read her blog and weep) Cherry is in freefall, and Simone turns for solace to Carol, part-time sex worker and A student. Other friends – Hardcore Frank, a beautiful Hispanic transsexual named Carlotta, and her boyfriend Pretty Boi – offer advice.

Young Toronto author Kristyn Dunnion describes herself as a “saucy tart,” but she’s also a seriously good prose stylist. Her second YA title is funny, outrageous, taut, and at times lyrical. The language is realistically explicit. Sophisticated enough to cross over into the lesbian fiction genre, Mosh Pit challenges gender prejudices head on. The teen underworld Dunnion so convincingly creates may traumatize some adult readers, as S.E. Hinton did a generation ago. But Mosh Pit has a recognizable moral core: be loyal to your friends and kind to your mom. Avoid hard drugs, or you’ll find yourself holding up convenience stores. This is a book that should bypass the usual suppliers (librarians, teachers, parents, grandparents) and go directly to its intended market: young adult readers.