"I was about nineteen the summer I wrote my first novel," author Randy Powell told Authors and Artists for Young Adults (AAYA) in an interview, "and it was about a kid who was nineteen who had no idea what he was doing or where he was going. That novel was never published, but I've been writing about characters like him ever since." Powell's searching, struggling, and often very humorous characters include Roger Ottosen in My Underrated Year, who is trying to choose between football and tennis; Biff Schmurr in Is Kissing a Girl Who Smokes Like Licking an Ashtray", who has a definite confidence problem; Dean Duffy in the novel Dean Duffy, who is trying to decide if he should make baseball his whole life; Stan in The Whistling Toilets, who wonders why he does not have the drive to succeed in tennis; and Grady in Tribute to...