Payton Gritas thinks her life is fairly normal. She has two pesky older brothers, a crazy best friend, and gets good grades in school. But when she accidentally walks in on her father while he is in the process of taking the medication needed to treat his multiple sclerosis, Payton realizes that maybe things aren't as perfect as she once thought. Furious that her parents had been hiding her father's illness from her, she stops communicating with her family and lets her schoolwork fall by the wayside. But Payton's guidance councilor has an idea and she is assigned to select a "focus object": An inanimate object that she can study in-depth and focus all of her emotions on. After much deliberation she picks an object that has been in front of her all along - the back of Sean Griswold's head. Payton has been sitting behind Sean for most of her life since their names are so close to each other alphabetically but she doesn't really know him. With the help of her boy-crazy best friend Payton begins Written by Lindsey Leavitt, Sean Griswold's Head is a sweet but surprisingly complicated story of first love. What really impressed me most about this book is the way that the lightheartedness of the Payton/Sean love story blended so well with the much meatier story of Payton's father's illness. The tone shifts smoothly when it needs to and there is plenty going on here for most readers to enjoy. I enjoyed getting inside Payton's head and seeing the complex and often irrational emotions that this teenage girl experiences when everything seems to go right and wrong all at once.
Overall Grade: B+
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