Edna Shinglebox and Louis “Marsh” Mellow are disaffected youth in the mid-1970s. When they are enrolled in a group therapy class at school they come to know each other and maybe help with each other’s emotional problems.
Everything in this book is bizarre, from Marsh’s stories his and his father’s exploits with women to Edna’s visit to a local psychic. The descriptions are wacky and vivid and very representative of the time period and the youth scene. Marsh and Edna are fully-realized characters, if a bit over-dramatic. It is likely that the intended audience for this book no longer exists, but a modern teen reader might appreciate getting a sense of teens and their struggles in a prior time period. ( )