Homeless in High School

Frightened by the fighting in their families, two teenage lovers realize in Homeless in High School that they’re treated better by each other’s parents. Hoping for improvement, Marshall and Melissa switch their houses but discover further quarrels and disintegrating marriages. Backed into a corner, they mature in a hurry when they turn into the grown-ups raising their adopted parents. Hard-headed and precocious but believable, they become the models of maturity that they can’t find at home, in many famous adolescent novels, and in cultural struggles over teenage abstinence or promiscuity. They’re befriended by a wise, irreverent English teacher, who admires in them what he has never witnessed in the so-called “classics” that he’s taught for decades. Writing their own Declaration of Independence, they confront demoralizing marriages and restore their families. They become relentless, laying down conditions for returning home, including mandatory counseling and an end to terrifying quarrels. Showing empathy and ingenuity, they offer an example of maturity not only for their foster parents but also for teenagers. Homeless in High School is a cross between a novel and a screen play. It has the readability of a well-written novel but the energy of a first-rate film in 80 swiftly moving scenes. The reader will be hooked immediately as Marshall and Melissa switch their homes and find their foster parents totally bewildered to discover that they’ve been adopted by each other’s children!