Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson

Starts strong, get a little too soap opera-ish in the middle, finishes as you think it will. The best parts are about the Straight Edge scene in NYC in the late '80's and those bits are what kept me moving through a somewhat conventional plot of teenage pregnancy, unrequited love in all it's different forms, the passing of the generational zeitgeist, and a Indian deus ex machina (Krishina?) of sorts that helps wrap everything up.

The writing is solid, but at times threatens to collapse under it's own weight - everything is described in detail, every sentence has had the hell written out of it. In some parts it works, but in others you wish the things would move forward.