This sequel to Hard Love (Simon & Schuster, 1999) opens four months after the first novel ended. It should be the start of Marisol’s freshman year in college, but she’s made the decision to take a year off before starting at Stanford so that she can write a novel and try out independence. She and her friend Gio have signed up for the same novel-writing course in an adult education program, and Marisol falls head-over-heels in love with the instructor, Olivia Frost. Her infatuation with the older, more experienced woman soon begins to overshadow everything else in her life. She can’t see, for example, that Lee, a young woman her age, newly out and newly moved to Cambridge, is crazy about her. Fictionalized versions of Marisol’s life play out in her novel as Wittlinger draws subtle parallels between the two, and the novel, like Marisol’s love life, begins to take on a life of its own. But it also becomes a way for Marisol to figure out what’s really in her heart. The lines her characters speak often come as a revelation to her, helping her to figure out things she hadn’t consciously known about herself or others. Through it all, this Puerto Rican–Cuban teen remains the character readers came to know and love in Hard Love : unflinching, unsentimental, and wickedly funny. (Age 14 and older)

Marisol Guzman has deferred college for a year to accomplish two things: She will write a novel and she will fall in love. How hard could that be? She gets her very own apartment (with her high school best friend as roommate) and a waitressing job at a classic Harvard Square coffeehouse. When she enrolls in an adult education class -- "How to Write Your First Novel" -- there are two big surprises waiting for her: John Galardi, aka "Gio," a fellow zine writer who fell head over heels for her last spring (despite the fact that she's a lesbian) and her instructor, Olivia Frost, the most exquisitely beautiful woman she's ever seen.

But as Marisol ventures into what seems to be her storybook romance with Olivia, things start to go off track. Between the ups and downs of her new relationship, her strained friendship with Lee (a newly out lesbian who is crushing big-time on Marisol), and her roommate's new boyfriend (who is equally afraid of Marisol and their cat) moving in, Marisol starts losing sight of her goals. Is she too blinded by love to see the lies?

In this long-anticipated companion novel to the Printz Honor Book Hard Love, which critics called "A bittersweet tale of self-expression and the struggle to achieve self-love," Ellen Wittlinger offers a novel just as emotionally honest and deeply felt.