In E-love Caroline Plaisted has given us a 21st-century take on teenage love and heartache. Sam is a bright, middle-class 15-year-old who chats away with her friends on the Internet, exchanging gossip and homework tips. The focus on the reliance on the Internet, e-mail and text-messaging services over the telephone reflects the evolution of teenage communication, and Plaisted has written a story pertinent to these new forms of communicating. Parts of the text are set out as e-mail or chat-room conversations, and it is these which make the story progress the most.

Sam meets (sort of by accident) 17-year-old Dan in a chat-room--despite that she's been expressly forbidden from talking to anyone other than her girlfriends. Dan proves to be who he says he is, and Sam manages to conduct a successful relationship, first online, then by mobile phone and then eventually in person, when they go to tennis camp together. Plaisted successfully explores the highs and lows of teenage love--envy from friends but admiration at her success; jealousy from Sam towards other girls Dan knows; hopes that despite the geographical distance they will stay together.

Despite--or maybe because of--the emphasis on the many forms of communication available to teenagers today, Sam suffers, as every girl from Juliet onwards has, from miscommunication problems. Praise to Plaisted for making the ending realistic, for placing heartache beside first love, but perhaps some criticism for portraying the online search for love as easy, safe and successful. --Olivia Dickinson