From a fresh new voice with talent to burn comes this brash, bitter-sweet novel about Tracy Ellison, a young, middle-class teen coming of age in Philadelphia's ostentatious eighties. Tracy is willing to go much further than any of her girlfriends as she sets out to lure the most popular boys in her neighborhood. Spoiled by her relatives and too much for her mother to handle, Tracy uses her personal brand of intimidating flattery to conquer one guy after another - until she meets her match in Victor Hinson, her Mr. Everything. Too grown and too fast for her own good, Tracy races through her sixteenth year, collecting designer clothing, jewelry, and street-smart boys with wild abandon. While Tracy pursues her adventurous, fast-paced lifestyle, Raheema, Tracy's girlfriend and neighbor, follows a very different course - struggling to maintain good grades in school and to avoid the powerful pressures to stray from the path she's chosen. Slowly Tracy begins to examine her life, her goals, and her sexuality - as she evolves from a "flyy girl" into a woman. The dialog in this coming-of-age African American story by Tyree, who self-published two books before getting his big break, is some of the best this reviewer has read in a long time. Tyree has a way making each phrase of every conversation true to life, whether spoken by a child or an adult. The story begins at Tracy Ellison's sixth birthday party. We follow her through her parent's shaky marriage to grade school and high school. Although the story does not venture much beyond Tracey's boy-chasing escapades and an occasional side plot about her next-door-neighbor, Raheema, the book is an entertaining diversion. Tyree writes so well that readers will put up with Tracey, who is selfish and often unkind. The author captures growing up in the Eighties with a subtle and finely rendered backdrop of songs and mischief reminiscent of the era. This should be enough to keep folks reading to the mildly rushed ending while hoping that the nasty little "flyy girl," Tracy, learns a few lessons along the way. Recommended for large collections.?Shirley Gibson Coleman, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., Mich. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. Tyree's debut is much longer than a YA novel, and far more vulgar, but the subject is pure teen: The ins and outs of dating matched up with a guide to fashion dos and don'ts. The further twist is that it's set in a largely black neighborhood of Philadelphia, where whites exist only as an excuse for some silly Afrocentric theorizing. At the heart of this morality tale is Tracy Ellison, a young girl whose adolescence and teenage years are depicted largely as a monotonous soap opera. The daughter of hardworking parents, Tracy lives in Germantown, a middle-class neighborhood, and does well in school. Her problems stem mainly from boys, and for most of her young life, she's truly boy-crazy. So much so, that this overlong narrative records in dull detail her years of flirting, courting, kissing, and having sex--``a game of choosing and chasing and dumping.'' By 13, she's tall, curvaceous, and cunning; she ``had to have whomever she wanted right away.'' That includes a wide range of eager young men, from the awkward and fumbling Bruce to the violent thief Timmy. With time, Tracy learns not to give it out without getting things in return, even though her behavior shocks her lifelong neighbor, Raheema, a studious girl who postpones her deflowering. What finally turns Tracy around, though, is the sad example of Raheema's older sister, who has become a crack whore. In this tightly ordered universe, bad living leads to addiction, unwanted pregnancy, jail, or death. Tracy also comes under the influence of some college girls who introduce her to the world of Kente cloth and the Minister Farrakhan. Tyree's shapeless docudrama seems written for an audience he intends to shock--why else would he pause so often (and so awkwardly) to translate slang terms that any watcher of Moesha would know? But for all its immoral behavior, it's a cautionary of the most heavy-handed sort: virtue rewarded; vice punished. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Flyy Girl By Omar Tyree Simon & Schuster Copyright © 1996 Omar Tyree All right reserved. ISBN: 9780684829289 From Chapter One: Drifting Apart "Happy birthday toooo you. Happy birthday toooo you. Happy bir-r-rth-day dear Tra-a-a-a-cy . . . Happy birthday toooo you," the crowd of sixteen children sang, helped along by some of the parents who were present. It was Sunday afternoon in Tracy's sixth year of life, nineteen-seventy-seven. She sat proudly on her father's lap at the table in front of her birthday cake. She cracked a broad smile in her cute red dress. Her newly tied ponytail dangled down her neck. Her hazel eyes enlarged as her daddy helped her to cut the two-layer cake while the other children watched excitedly, all wishing that it was their birthday. Tracy's da