“Niven gifts readers with long-forgotten artifacts of teenage life. And she presents it all with laugh-out-loud, acerbic wit that brings to mind the style of David Sedaris.”
“Hair-raisingly funny.” — Entertainment Weekly
Jennifer Niven tackles her most harrowing expedition of all: high school. Her first two books, The Ice Master and Ada Blackjack, relayed the tales of deadly and dramatic Arctic adventures, but now she tells a survival tale of a different kind—her own thrilling, excruciating, and utterly unforgettable adventure in a midwestern high school during the 1980s.
Richmond, Indiana, is a place where people know their neighbors and go to church on Sundays. It also has only one high school with 2,500 students, and for many of the students and the townspeople, it is the center of the universe. In The Aqua-Net Diaries, Niven takes readers through her adolescent years in full, glorious—and hilarious—detail, sharing awkward moments from the first day of school to driver's ed to her first love against a backdrop of bad 1980s fashion and big hair. Like Chuck Klosterman in Fargo Rock City, Niven's voice perfectly captures the pain, joy, and shame of going through adolescence in America's heartland, making a funny, touching, and universal experience.