Everything you need to understand or teach Love Is the Crooked Thing by Barbara Wersba.
In Love Is the Crooked Thing, the second volume in a trilogy about Rita Formica, the high school junior deals with a number of changes in her life. Rita, who serves as the novel's wry, love-struck narrator, pines for her much older boyfriend who is living in Zurich and learns lessons about the power of love and personal independence.