Frozen Rodeo, by Catherine Clark

Fleming spends the summer stuck at home, helping her pregnant mother take care of her three brothers and sisters.  She's lost her driving privileges because of a car accident earlier in the year.  So, she's consigned to pouring coffee at the Git n' Go gas station and studying Intermediate French in the mornings.  Not much excitement there!  Even worse though is that her Dad is committed to completely humiliating her by appearing at their town's annual rodeo in an ice-skating routine.

It's all a bit random and basically amounts to "Fleming's sucky summer." That really would not have drawn me in, but the blurb promised that all the craziness would get tied up in the end in a really amazing way.  It sort of does, but I didn't find the ending worth the slog.  Anecdotes can be fun, but without an overarching story, there really isn't a point to this book.  The most promising plot line (Fleming's problems with getting her parents to accept that she is growing up) gets resolved in the laziest fashion possible:  after amazing injustices she finally explodes at them, they realize their errors, and become amazingly considerate (does that ever happen in real life?!).



[Note:  This book is apparently also published under the title of Better Latte Than Never (not sure if this is a better title or not).]