Gale Zoë Garnett's debut novel has been described as "picaresque," but that doesn't quite fit the bill. Originally (and according to Webster's Unabridged), the word refers to a style of Spanish satire in which a wandering hero has a series of bizarre, funny encounters "that often depict, in realistic detail, the everyday life of the common people." While Garnett's coming-of-age/road-trip tale is bizarre and funny, there's nothing common, everyday, or even realistic about the people her protagonist, voluptuous 14-year-old Roanne Chappell, meets after she leaves home. Shortly after Roanne's sweaty-palmed crush on a 34-year-old creative-writing teacher culminates in uncomfortable, sandy sex under a pier, she catches her new lover in bed with her mom. The resultant heartfelt mother-daughter talk doesn't go particularly well, so Roanne runs off to find herself, mostly by throwing herself into the laps of the fabulously rich and munificent. Virtually everyone she encounters—from a famous gay French-Canadian dwarf cartoonist to a celebrated British rock band to an old clown-college acquaintance whose parents run a successful Christian "rebirthing" center—is friendly, whimsical, wealthy, and willing to feed, shelter, clothe, entertain, and educate her without question. In spite of the implied alcoholism, depression, and self-destructive tendencies running rampant among these new friends, virtually the entire book is as cheerfully, implausibly cloying as a Victorian fairy-tale fantasy, with Roanne as the adorable (though oversexed) moppet who meanders into the forest and is hailed as Queen Of The May by band after band of merry, generous woodland sprites. Unlike disaffected teen Russell Hammond, who encounters a similarly high-flying world of wonder in Cameron Crowe's far more culturally significant Almost Famous, Roanne doesn't keep any sort of real-world perspective; she instead decides she's finally found "my own group… Roanne People," and can comfortably quit school, live off others, and pursue her art. Garnett, an essayist, actress, and singer-songwriter who won two Grammys in the '60s, likely has an intimate knowledge of the vibrantly gaudy California her strong-willed character describes, and she makes it involving, entertaining, and unpredictable, though not terribly relevant to those living outside the magic forest. Roanne's adolescent enthusiasm, quirky surroundings, and uniquely colorful idiom (which Garnett begins building early on by verbing key nouns and creating odd compounds like "yippieshit," "superbad," and "eachother") keep the book bouncing jauntily along. But these same elements also begin to grate, as Amazement progresses without her learning anything more cohesive than that orgasms and eternal parties are way-cool and personal tragedy is superbad. Roanne may not be old enough for any deeper insight, but Garnett is.