Youth In Revolt

PLOT SUMMARY

The book's protagonist is Nick Twisp, a young boy of above-average intelligence going through Puberty . He is naturally obsessed with girls and sex but has had little experience with either. His life continues like a normal teenager's with his best friend Leroy, a.k.a. Lefty, and his divorced parents. His mother is dating a truck driver named Jerry, who sells a group of sailors a Chevy Jeep that dies soon after the sailors get it. In response, the sailors go for revenge. After outsmarting them, Jerry strategically decides to take a vacation, so they all go to a religious mobile home camp.

It is there that Nick meets Sheridan "Sheeni" Saunders and his life is turned completely upside down. Through plots to get Sheeni closer to him he ends up with several crimes on his hands and is forced to run from the cops. He tricks everyone into thinking he went to India, thereby escaping the police. Nick hides out with his sister and returns with help from his friend in Ukiah, Frank "Fuzzy" DeFalco. He dresses in Fuzzy's late grandmother's clothes, adopting the name Carlotta and a conservative disposition, so that Nick may enter the public. As he does so, he befriends Sheeni and several other people who Nick knew before. While spending the night with Sheeni on Christmas Eve , she reveals to him that she knows it is him, not Carlotta. He then gets "The best Christmas present a boy could receive," starting a secret relationship with Sheeni.

Faced with homelessness from the loss of the house he had been squatting in, he becomes rich beyond belief when an idea of his, a wart watch, makes it big. His wealth grows further when an elderly neighbor of his Nick's older sister takes a liking to Nick and decides to put him in her will. When she dies Nick is left $10,000 dollars richer.

CHARACTERS

Nick Twisp - The-fourteen-year-old protagonist. The novel is told through his journal entries. Nick is a cynical and sex-obsessed teenager who pines for Sheeni Saunders. He creates throughout the story two alter egos: Francois and Carlotta. Francois is the "bad side" and Carlotta is the relatively "good side"

Sheeni Saunders - A hyper-intelligent fourteen year old girl who is the object of Nick's desire

George Twisp - Nick's greedy, sex-obsessed father

Estelle Twisp - Nick's neurotic mother

Lacey - Nick's father's curvaceous but dim-witted girlfriend

Paul Saunders - Sheeni's older brother. He has the amazing talent of reading Nick's life like a book, as if he knows all the answers; Nick's "oracle"

Jerry - Nick's mother's boyfriend as the story opens, whom Nick dislikes

Wally Rumpkin - Estelle's second boyfriend, a tall shy truck driver with encyclopedic trivia knowledge

Lance Wescott - Third and final man Estelle has "shanghaid into her bed;" a fascist member of the Oakland PD.

Information About

Youth In Revolt