Love is awkward, as fans of Rainbow Rowell and E. Lockhart well know. Funny and heartbreaking in equal measure, this grocery store romance was a Morris Award Finalist for Best YA debut. "Smart, honest and full of achingly real characters. And it made me laugh. What else would you want in a book?" —Melina Marchetta, Printz Award-winning author From the moment Amelia sets eyes on Chris, she is a goner. Lost. Sunk. Head over heels infatuated with him. It's problematic, since Chris, 21, is a sophisticated university student, while Amelia, 15, is 15. Amelia isn't stupid. She knows it's not gonna happen. So she plays it cool around Chris—at least, as cool as she can. Working checkout together at the local supermarket, they strike up a friendship: swapping life stories, bantering about everything from classic books to B movies, and cataloging the many injustices of growing up. As time goes on, Amelia's crush doesn't seem so one-sided anymore. But if Chris likes her back, what then? Can two people in such different places in life really be together? Through a year of befuddling firsts—first love, first job, first party, and first hangover—debut author Laura Buzo shows how the things that break your heart can still crack you up. "A sweet and scathingly funny love story." — Kirkus , Starred Review Kirkus Reviews Best of Teen's Books 2012 Starred Review, Kirkus Reviews , November 15, 2012: “A sweet and scathingly funny love story. . . . The exactly right conclusion eschews easy resolution, though there’s plenty of hope as they flounder into the future.” "Smart, honest and full of achingly real characters. And it made me laugh. What else would you want in a book?" —Melina Marchetta, Printz Award-winning author of Jellicoe Road Booklist, 2012: "Charged, authentic, and awkward . . . The realistic situations and questions will stay with readers."   A life-long resident of Sydney Australia, LAURA BUZO is a social worker and mother to a young daughter. Love and Other Perishable Items is her first novel. Lights Up “I’m writing a play,” says Chris, leaning over the counter of my cash register. “It’s called Death of a Customer. Needless to say, it’s set here.” He jerks his head toward the aisles lined with groceries and lit with harsh fluorescent bars. It takes me a moment to place the reference, but then I remember Death of a Salesman from when Dad took me to see the play last year. “Sounds good.” “Want to be in it?” I nod eagerly. “Cool. We’re going to the pub after work to workshop it. You should come.” “Who--” I squeak. “Who’s going?” “Oh, Ed, Bianca, Donna . . . people.” I am only three weeks past my fifteenth birthday, but my braces came off a month ago, so I could possibly slip into a pub looks-wise. Trouble is, my scorching unease would give me away to the door guy, and even if by some miracle it didn’t, I am terrified of interacting socially with my coworkers. Except Chris. Donna is my age, but she has no trouble keeping up with them. She wears eye makeup and pulls it off. She wears calf-high black boots with purple laces. She smokes and has been kicked out of home by her father several times. She has serious street cred. Unlike me. Ed is nice enough, but he’s eighteen and kind of vagued out all the time. Bianca is twenty-three and ignores me so consistently that it must be deliberate. I am not going to the pub with them. “I can’t,” I say. “Why not?” “I have homework.” This is not a lie. I’m struggling in math as it is. Getting behind will make it worse. My shift ends at nine o’clock, so even if I go straight home, I won’t get to my homework until nine-forty at least. Chris’s face contracts in annoyance. “So? I have a two-thousand-word paper due on Friday. Life must still be lived.” “I can’t.” “You can do it in the morning.” I shake my head. “I’ll take you home afterward. You’ll be home by midnight.” Now I’m torn. Two hours of sharing him with the others and then I’d be rewarded by fifteen minutes of having him all to myself on the walk home. “Ed’s got his parents’ car tonight. We’ll drop you right at your door.” Crap. “I can’t.” “Fine, whatever,” he says, withdrawing his presence like a parent confiscating a favorite toy. He stalks off in the direction of the deli, probably to ask “She’s-big-she’s-blond-she-works-in-the-deli” Georgia to go to the pub and join the collaboration on his dramatic masterpiece. As Chris’s name for her suggests, Georgia is in fact blond, has big breasts, and manages to wear the deli’s white uniform in a way that is quite fetching. However, my point of envy is the fact that, at eighteen, she is a good three years closer in age to Chris. “No fair,” I mutter as he disappears from sight. Land of Dreams Chris never refers to the Coles supermarket we work at as “Coles.” He calls it the Land of Dreams. On nights and weekends, the Land of Dreams is staffed by part-timers. Mainly high school students (me, Street Cred Donna and several others who go to public schools in the are