In the wake of his twin brother's death, Jonathan, a former star student, is facing the possibility of repeating his junior year. The only things standing between him and failure are his devoted best friends, an understanding principal named Gupti, and his English teacher. The assignments that will ensure his promotion? Attend class every day, help an 88-year-old WWII veteran write his memoir, and perform Gupti's favorite song, "Crossing the River Styx," at graduation. Wesselhoeft offers a psychologically complex debut that will intrigue heavy-metal aficionados and drama junkies alike. Peopled with the elderly and infirm, crazy parents, caring educators, and poignant teens trying desperately to overcome death's pull, it mixes real and fictional musicians and historical events to create a moving picture of struggling adolescents and the adults who reach out with helping hands. Darker and more complex than Jordan Sonnenblick's thematically similar Notes from the Midnight Driver (2006), Adios, Nirvana targets an audience of YAs who rarely see themselves in print.

After his brother's tragic death, once-promising student Jonathan is now in danger of failing. Jonathan sees loss and life anew when, in order to pass junior year, the principal forces him to help an elderly WWII veteran write his story. Compassionate characters and poignant human connections will reach teens; copious references to poetry and music will interest the artsy set.

Seattle high-school junior Jonathan's life has turned upside down since he won a major poetry contest shortly after his twin brother's death. His hedonistic mother, who works at the Bikini Bean Espresso Drive-Thru, and his Thicks (friends) all try to support him, but he's just careening through life, fueled by Red Bull and No-Doz. Jonathan fears sleep, when he's caught in the memories and music he shared with the brother. A bizarre intersection of amusingly oddball characters finds him earning cash by writing the biography of a Hospice patient whose life has been scarred by his experiences in World War II. In prose as overwrought as the protagonist, the first-person narration touches on poetry, truth, music, friends and death. The suicidal fears that are evident from the first page ratchet up the tension. Through a slam-bang climactic graduation ceremony that includes a priceless guitar, Eddie Vedder and King Kong, the appeal of the constant jitters and manic life finally fade. It's all kind of a mess, but at least it's a high-energy, appealing one. (Fiction. 14 & up)

The grief that drives 16-year-old poet and musician Jonathan often clashes with the forced zaniness of the supporting cast in Wesselhoeft's moving but uneven debut. Since his twin brother, Telemachus, died, Jonathan has channeled his pain into award-winning poetry, but he is also on the verge of flunking out of school. His teachers give him one chance to make up for his missing work, on condition that he agree to perform his principal's favorite song at graduation and take on a job writing the biography of David, a dying WWII veteran. The improbable plot isn't helped by characters like Jonathan's negligent and offbeat mother, who works as a bikini-clad barista and plans to turn their house into a wedding chapel, or stereotypically goofy Alzheimer's patient Agnes, whose outbursts are too often played for humor instead of pathos. Jonathan's caffeine- and taurine-fueled writing sessions and his conversations with David offer closure to his grief and a lifeline back to normalcy. But Wesselhoeft's ability to deliver genuine emotion makes the book's inconsistencies that much more frustrating. Ages 14%E2%80%93up. (Oct.)

Gr 10 Up-Jonathan isn't sure he can survive in the wake of his twin's death after being struck by a Seattle bus. Telly's guitar talent and magnetism have cast a shadow that's hard for the high school junior to get out from underhow can a lifelong duet turn solo? While hanging with his "Thicks," the tight circle of buddies he shared with his twin, he's focused on vodka-filled grapes, the immediacy of sensation, and an epic poem to his lost other half, but meanwhile he's dug himself a hole tough to climb out of in the remaining months of the school year. He has to use his own substantial talents as an award-winning poet to write the life story of a World War II vet dying in hospice and perform the principal's favorite song at graduation on a legendary guitar donated by rocker hero Eddie Vedder after Telly's death. What's more, his flaky mom bugs him to scrape and paint the house so that she can turn it into a wedding chapel. Through a scary lack of sleep and bursts of activity fueled by NoDoz and Red Bull, Jonathan grapples with finding his own singularity and sounds. By working with the blind veteran, whose story of loss resonates with and amplifies Jonathan's own survivor's guilt, he can better face his audience to perform with the grit of Telly's ashes sharing the limelight. Homage to poetry, music, friendship, and youth, this brash, hip story should attract its share of skater dudes and guitar jammers. Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Sugar Hill, GA

Jonathan is a depressed and cynical high school junior who lives with his mother in Seattle. He almost takes his own life while he grieves over the recent death of his twin brother, Telly. He cares little about things in life. His main support systems are a tight group of friends he has befriended since preschool, the Thicks; his guitars; a stimulant called Red Bull; and Vodka-filled frozen grapes. He writes poetry like the wind and plays a mean guitar. Jonathan’s mother is pretty nonconventional. By night she dances to earn money, but her dream is to perform weddings in a chapel. Jonathan’s father is long gone from his life, and Jonathan is in danger of repeating his junior year unless he complies with his principal’s demands. He must perform for the graduation audience in June and write a biography of an unsung World War II hero, David Cosgrove. The only problem is, David is an ailing, old blind man who resides inside a hospice. Can Jonathan fulfill this daunting request? What could Jonathan possibly have in common with David? Yet in the hospice, David has his own support system.