What that white bitch doin' here? Same as you, bitch, she ain't got noplace else to go. Here is the gritty homeless shelter 15-year-old Jan entered after leaving her mother to fester in a dysfunctional marriage. Her 14 months in New York's social welfare system are marked by prejudice (directed at Jan by predominantly black shelter residents) and a parade of fierce, memorable characters, from Shanita Who Could Squirt Breast Milk to a juvie alumna who challenges newcomers by asking, You ever get hit with a lock in a sock? Halfway through the narrative, Jan rejoins her mother, at which point the book's title (a play on the author's last name) begins to make more sense; hormones, resentments, and insecurities detonate furiously as she and her new-wave high-school pals fish for thrills in the cocaine-fueled club scene of 1980s New York. The rounds of self-destructive behavior make for less captivating reading than the firsthand accounts of teen homelessness, but memoir readers who enjoy tales of harrowing, idiosyncratic coming-of-age will still embrace Erlbaum's rueful self-regard and savage humor (Group Therapy was always a clusterfuck).

Post-feminist blogger and Bust magazine columnist Erlbaum recounts her rough-and-tumble, drug-and-sex-addled adolescence, focusing on a year spent in the New York City shelter system. On Nov. 1, 1984, 15-year-old Janice checked into a shelter for young women to escape family abuse. The only white girl there, she was a constant target of harrowing verbal and physical violence. After six months, she moved to a group home run by a sadistically strict matron who seemed to delight in Machiavellian control tactics. Surrounded by a motley crew of colorful castoffs, Janice the Liar (the author does not let herself escape her own cleverly critical tongue) was surrounded by such freaks as Shirley the Nympho and Becky the Baby. Entrenched in the world of the "halfway homeless," Erlbaum continued to attend high school, an archetypal over-intelligent underachiever who used her smarts in the service of scoring drugs and manipulating authority figures. Bored, insecure, sometimes simply nihilistic, the attractive redhead used her feminine wiles and generous endowment to become the school slut. Finally, at the tail end of a solitary acid trip, she found true love with tattooed Sebastian, a fellow damaged soul. Together, the Sid and Nancy Lite duo acquired (but later kicked) a nasty cocaine habit. Erlbaum writes with gusto and has an excellent sense of pacing. We come to care about her, perhaps because we are never unaware of her weaknesses and flaws. By the end, readers may feel they have relived their own painful, turbulent teen years. Vivid, painfully realistic coming-of-age memoir.

Adult/High School-The author's childhood was not a pleasant one. Her mother's string of abusive boyfriends and husbands had left her with no choice; after her mom kicked her last stepfather out, Erlbaum told her, "If you take him back, then I'm leaving." When she was 15, she left her Manhattan home after her mother once again reunited with the man. She spent several weeks in a shelter and eventually ended up in a group home. She had casual, unprotected sex with a string of boys and abused alcohol and drugs. Just over a year after she moved out, she moved back in with her now-single mother, and the book's title (a play on the author's last name) was realized: life as a high school student clashed with the cocaine-fueled club scene of the 1980s. This memoir illustrates the conflicting desires of adolescence-to fit in, to be loved, and to be independent. The writing is concise and engaging, but, most of all, it's honest. Erlbaum doesn't try to excuse her behavior; rather, she analyzes why she went down that self-destructive path and what made her change her ways. Readers will find solace in the knowledge that, despite the lack of structure in her home life, she managed to pull it all together. She worked at an after-school job, starred in a school play, graduated high school, and got into college.-Erin Dennington, Chantilly Regional Library, Fairfax County, VA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.