ZoÙ Kendall, talented car mechanic and rally driver, and her boyfriend, Adam Harlow, race together and plan to attend the same college for engineering. ZoÙ's super-mom, coping with her son's inappropriate behavior and her own marital problems, railroads ZoÙ into a medical career by filling out the college application and arranging a personal tour of the college and the mother's sorority. ZoÙ accepts her mother's choices and avoids telling Adam her new plans. The resulting migraines, nausea, and troubled dreams tell her that she is wrong. When she chooses to take a mother-arranged, makeup biology exam over the rally race that she promised to run with Adam, Adam confronts her and her family. ZoÙ realizes her mistake, asserts herself, and opts for the race. ZoÙ and Adam do not win, but ZoÙ's family now might give her the space to make her own decisions while they work to solve their own problems. Middle school and junior high girls could find this happily-ever-after, career/romance novel appealing, but ZoÙ's clueless responses throughout the story as well as the super-controlling mother's willingness to relent at the end are difficult to believe. Both the driving, ambitious father and the difficult older brother are not developed enough to be more than add-ons. Readers faced with similar situations usually experience more subtle pressures, and girls with less appealing choices might have difficulty relating to this affluent protagonist with seemingly endless opportunities.-Lucy Schall.

Gr 6 Up-In this sequel to Racing Fear (Lorimer, 2004), high school senior Zo' wants to be an automotive engineer, but her mother decides that she should be a physician instead. Unbelievably, the teen happily goes along with this plan until she pieces together the reason she'd been in such a fog about her future, and why she didn't consider rebelling against her mother. The reason? Because Zo' has always kept the family peace, no matter the cost to her personally. The reason for that? Because her older brother, who has ADHD and was in an accident that left him with a permanent limp and a badly scarred face, is always acting out. Fortunately, Zo' comes to realize all of this just in time to continue along her original path of becoming a race-car engineer. Unbelievably, both of her parents are also cheerfully supportive of her decision; they, too, have had epiphanies. Guest's characters come off as stereotypes rather than real people, and the ending is far too neatly and prettily tied up, straining credulity.-Catherine Ensley, Latah County Free Library District, Moscow, ID Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.