Nel­ly Sue Edelmeis­ter is a 13-year-old girl with more than usu­al teenage angst. A self-described ​“nerd,” bright and intro­spec­tive beyond her years, Nel­ly lives in Berlin with her Amer­i­can Jew­ish moth­er (“I left New York but it nev­er left me!”) and her way­ward yet lov­ing Ger­man Chris­t­ian father. She is sur­round­ed by prob­lem­at­ic par­ents, an all-wise sub­sti­tute grand­moth­er, a Jew­ish senior cit­i­zen sup­port group and a shift­ing coterie of col­or­ful friends. The only con­stant in her life is her obses­sive infat­u­a­tion with Prince William, heir to the British throne. The sto­ry is well craft­ed and writ­ten, with Nel­ly — con­flict­ed about her forth­com­ing bat mitz­vah — cop­ing with issues of reli­gion, death, friend­ship and fam­i­ly dys­func­tion. The sto­ry line is imag­i­na­tive and real­is­ti­cal­ly told and pro­vides read­ers with a teenager’s insight into being Jew­ish in con­tem­po­rary Berlin. The sto­ry is writ­ten in the first per­son with punchy dia­log that includes some blunt and sug­ges­tive — but not gra­tu­itous — lan­guage. Nel­ly is a mul­ti­di­men­sion­al indi­vid­ual whose words and thoughts real­is­ti­cal­ly mir­ror those of a sen­si­tive and con­flict­ed teenag­er. Oth­er char­ac­ters, though, some­times appear as car­i­ca­tures or stereo­types. A glos­sary is pro­vid­ed for the Jew­ish words that pep­per the sto­ry. Teenage girls will par­tic­u­lar­ly enjoy it. Rec­om­mend­ed for ages 12 – 14.