Field Guide to the North American Teenager

When Norris, a Black French Canadian, starts his junior year at an Austin, Texas, high school, he views his fellow students as cliche s from "a bad 90s teen movie." Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian whose family just moved to Austin, Texas, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he meets: the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. He's amusing himself until it's time to go back to Canada. But soon those labels soon become actual people: loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris; Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. And Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl might be a real love interest in the making. When Norris screws everything up royally on prom night, will he be able to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions, and start living his life? -- adapted from jacket

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.