Stephanie Craig’s first novel, This Is Me, includes all the ingredients of successful young adult fiction: friendship, romance, discord, angst, resolution. This mix results in a sweet, gentle story, but one that lacks a sustained sense of drama.

The “me” of the title is Shelagh Howard, a newly 13-year-old Grade 8 student, who begins a year of personal discovery and growth after co-founding the Match Made Before Heaven club. Through the club, which pairs students with seniors at a local nursing home, she makes a special friend with her octogenarian partner Dorothy, meets her first boyfriend, Tom, a fellow club member, and improves her relationship with her family. Inevitably, Dorothy dies, but not before giving Shelagh a stronger sense of self and purpose.

Though the club and its activities provide the backbone for the novel, they don’t provide enough of a dramatic focus. Each chapter foreshadows conflicts that fail to arise or that remain undeveloped, like the father’s mystery romance that keeps him from joining Shelagh at a special event. Similarly, Craig’s style lacks vigour, with little variation in sentence structure or form, and extensive descriptions and explanations that weigh down the prose. Though all the main characters are likable, their consistently mature and well-reasoned responses jar with their ages, making the novel’s voice unrealistic and the characters too predictable.

This Is Me is a genuinely earnest novel, with a plotline that would endear it to parents concerned about age-appropriate reading material, but this earnestness may make it too tame for sophisticated 11- to 14-year-olds looking for stories with zip and protagonists they can relate to.