Breakout (A Junior Library Guild Selection)

★ USA Today暢銷作家 Christina Wyman 全新暖心校園成長小說
★ 當青春期的「火山痘痘」爆發，友情、家庭與自信也正在翻湧
★ 幽默又真實的中學日常——每個曾經尷尬長大的孩子都會懂

青春期就像火山爆發，誰也躲不掉。艾莉絲在八年級面對青春痘、家庭變化與友情壓力，生活一團亂，但在姨媽與小狗洛可的陪伴下，她逐漸明白：真正的成長，是學會接納自己。Christina Wyman以幽默又真誠的筆觸，寫下一段既爆笑又動人的中學成長故事。

A Junior Library Guild Selection

From the USA Today-bestselling author of Jawbreaker and Slouch, this fresh and funny middle-grade novel is a brand-new, standalone story about a girl with chronic acne figuring out how to feel good in her own skin--perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier.

Rising star author Christina Wyman tackles another quintessential middle-school experience--acne--with her trademark humor, honesty, and heart in Breakout. It's ideal for readers who love Raina Telgemeier, Terri Libenson, Kelly Yang, Gordon Korman, and other endlessly funny and deeply heartfelt books that tackle big topics and universal coming-of-age alike.

1Bumpy Terrain

I haven’t even opened my eyes and I already know that the worst has happened.

It actually flipping happened. After spending all flipping winter break telling my flipping self that it flipping wouldn’t.

And not only did it happen, it happened tenfold. It extra happened. All in time for the first flipping day back to school after a too-short holiday distraction. They really need to give us off the entire month of January. It’s not like anything actually happens in January. Even our teachers know this.

But thanks to school starting up again, I get to spend the first month of a whole new year cosplaying as a pepperoni pizza.

Eighth grade started off okay enough. September marked a few zits here, a few zits there. And then October and November brought rows of ’em, adorned by the occasional red mound that looked angrier than the rest.

December was even more concerning. You’d think I dipped my face into a bucket of oil before I left for school each morning.

As I lie in bed, my phone’s alarm screaming at me, I don’t even have to touch the bump between my eyebrows to know it’s there. It literally hurts just thinking about it. Like, I can feel it throbbing. It has its own flipping pulse.

Mom likes to tell me that my skin breaks out because I’m Always Touching My Face, which is only partially true. I’m not always touching my face, and besides, I’m one of the most meticulous hand washers you could ever hope to meet: at least thirty seconds of scrubbing, every time, and sometimes twice.

I mean, have you ever been inside a school with a bunch of sixth, seventh, and eighth graders? It’s worse than a petri dish. I honestly don’t understand why scientists don’t just come to T. Burke—my junior high school—and conduct their experiments on the floors, desks, and walls. They’d probably discover totally new antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The kind that eats flesh and brains. Eyeballs. Maybe even teeth. We are a literal public health concern. Why can’t we find a strain of bacteria that eats zits, like, on the spot? Anyway, there’s no way my hands are as dirty as Mom says they are.

I lightly rub my fingertips across my cheeks, nose, chin, and forehead. Maybe I’m imagining the throbbing sensation between my eyebrows?

No. Not imagining it. I am certain. And there’s another on the actual tip of my flipping nose. Now it’s just a question of redness, visibility, and popability.

Ugh. I do not want to look in the mirror this morning.

And just as I’m about finished exploring my face, Mom comes barging into my room like her butt’s on fire.

“Ellison Starr, if you’re old enough to set an alarm, you’re old enough to shut it off,” she growls, snatching my phone from the end table and silencing it. “This is the first Wednesday I’ve had off in months. Have some consideration.”

“Sorry,” I grumble. I hate when she says my full name. Ellison is her last name and Starr is Dad’s last name, like they decided when I was born that they didn’t want me to be my own person.

Mom’s still in her pajamas with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. There’s no in-between with the temperature in our apartment. It’s either frigid or like the middle of a heat wave—and entirely based on whatever mood Ronnie The Landlord is in because we don’t have our own thermostat.

“I’ll have to call Ronnie again. This is ridiculous. I can practically see my breath in here,” she says. I start to feel bad when I notice that she’s shivering.

“Maybe get Dad to talk to him?” I say.

“Oh, you know how much I love asking your father for anything,” Mom says as she rolls her eyes.

“Well, it’s warm in here,” I say after a minute, as I lift a corner of my heated blanket. We only have one and Mom let me use it last night. “And I have an awesome idea.”

“What’s that, honey?” Mom says, crawling into bed next to me. It’s one of my favorite things to do with her, but it’s been a while since we’ve gotten under the covers, especially on a school morning. “Do you remember how we used to do this together?” she says. “You were such a little girl. I miss those days.”

What I remember most is how I used to climb into bed with her and Dad, back before they split, and how nice it was. Warm and safe and uncomplicated.

“So what’s this great idea of yours?” she says, pulling me into her. I tilt my head downward so that she doesn’t smell my rank breath.

“You can totally let me take off from school today and we can watch a bunch of movies and shove caramel corn in our faces, like we did on the first day of break?” I say hopefully. I could really use a day to see if my skin clears up, but I don’t say that part. “Pretty please? With a cherry and a ton of whipped cream on top?”

Mom bursts out laughing. “Have we met?” she says. “You know how important attendance and grades are in this house. And, as I recall, you have a very big project coming up. The school system website thing reminded me all about it. Isn’t your proposal due next Monday?”

Ugh. I hate that thing. Mom checks my homework through the school’s Stalk Your Child system at least three times a week. And this project, this terrible capstone thing, has been a total drag. Every kid in the eighth grade has to come up with an idea that they Super Care About and then do a whole bunch of research about their flipping topic and then convince a bunch of sixth and seventh graders and all of our families that our Projects from Hell are important. The setup is all science fair–style, where everyone stands at a table or a booth to wait for people to ask them questions about what they did and why it matters, blah, blah blah.

I’ve been super stressed-out about it. And the more I ignore it, the more anxious I get. I don’t have a single idea about what I want to do, which means I don’t have a proposal yet, either. Our teachers told us to work really hard on it during the holiday break.

I’m a good student, but … fat chance. My vacation consisted of exactly three things: seeing my best friend, Aggy, as much as possible, sleeping in as much as possible, and eating as many leftover snowflake-shaped cookies as possible.

Oh, and writing in my sparkly journal of Random (un)Scientific Facts as much as possible. So let’s make that four things. Yep, my break consisted of exactly four things, and working on a big school project was not one of them.

“Ellis,” Mom says, her voice stern now, “what are your plans?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” I half whisper, half groan.

“The system says that the full project is due in about eight weeks, in time for the showcase,” Mom says. “And that you have to write a one-page description by Monday.”

“I’ll figure it out by then,” I grumble.

2Mom’s Big Idea

“For the love of everything, you are your father’s daughter,” Mom says with a sigh. We’re still in bed and I might be late for school, but that’s fine with me. “Both of you wait as long as possible to do things you don’t want to do. But you know what? This procrastination thing you do is not gonna fly in high school. And I seem to remember a couple of close calls in the seventh grade.”

Sigh. Yes, there were more than a couple.

“Mom, you know how I work,” I say. “I’m trying to come up with an idea that I care about, but I’m not excited about anything. Nothing totally speaks to me yet.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to totally speak to you,” Mom says. “Maybe you just need to do a project and be done with it.”

“That sounds like a terrible way to spend time,” I say.

“Honey,” Mom huffs as she gets out from under the covers, “you better get used to it. Life isn’t always going to be fun and full of all of the things you want to do.”

But why not? Why shouldn’t life be full of all the things we want and more? I don’t ask. The last time I did, I got a lecture about my Unrealistic Expectations.

“And no boss is gonna tolerate this I’m always late with my stuff nonsense,” she says. “If I was always late to work, or if your father was late to work, neither of us would have jobs, and we wouldn’t have roofs over our heads or food in our stomachs, and that goes for you, too. Imagine me telling my supervisors that I need an extra week to deliver the mail.” She laughs at that. “It’s ridiculous. And look at your Aunt Lydia and her dog training business. Do you think she’d have clients if she was always late or said she didn’t feel like working? Reputation is everything in her world. I really respect what she’s building for herself, the first business owner in the whole family. Don’t you want something like that for your own future?”

I kind of have to admit that Mom’s right. Dad’s a mechanic at a local shop during the week and makes extra cash doing simple jobs on people’s cars on weekends. He has a good relationship with his boss because he works magic under the hood, and quickly, too. He could work seven days a week if he wanted to—and usually does when it’s not his turn to have me for the weekend. And Aunt Lydia is Dad’s older sister. She has a golden retriever puppy named Rocco and works full-time as a vet tech at the local animal hospital. She built a reputation for basically being a dog whisperer and started her business last year.

“The point is, you can avoid doing things you don’t want to do if you find something that really interests you,” Mom says, more gently this time.

“I like journaling a little bit,” I say. “And collecting random details. Did you know that there are more than fifteen hundred active volcanoes on earth?” And it feels like one thousand of them are located right on my face.

“That’s interesting,” Mom says. She’s standing over me now, and I’m still under the covers.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Ugh. I hate that question. “I have no idea,” I say. “Besides, I’m in the eighth grade. Don’t I have at least fifty more years before I have to start thinking about that?”

“Only if you want to live at home with your mommy forever,” Mom says, tickling my feet. I kick at her, but it’s all in good fun.

“Ellis,” she says after a minute, “if you’re really struggling with a topic, just do it on climate change. Anyone with a couple of brain cells to rub together cares about climate change, right?”

“I guess,” I say with a yawn. I’m pretty sure Aggy is going to ring the bell in twenty minutes and I’m so not going to be ready. We walk to school together.

“We talk about it on my route all the time, me and my co-workers who are closer to retirement,” Mom continues. “They say all the time about how much more severe the weather is now than when they started around twenty, thirty years ago. And the post office doesn’t get snow days or rain days or anything like it. We’re expected to work through all kinds of conditions. Now let’s get moving.” She holds out her hand to help pull me out of bed. Her skin is already ice cold.

I’m not looking forward to pulling the covers off. If my bedroom is this cold, the bathroom will be even colder.

3Mom Is Hot and Cold

I selected an outfit last night. A pair of jeans with rips at the knees, a long-sleeved blue flannel shirt, and a new pair of sneakers Mom got me over the holidays, gleaming white with silver laces. She inspects my choices before leaving my room.

“It’s going to be cold today,” she says, gesturing to the flannel. “You might want to think about layers.”

“School is really hot,” I say. “It’s a flipping sauna in our classrooms. Except for the gym, where it’s practically Antarctica.”

“Well, these are too tight,” she continues, holding up my pants. “Besides, you know I don’t like jeans with holes in them.”

“Nothing else is clean and the rips are small and at the knee,” I say. “I made them myself, with your permission. And you didn’t say one word about it when I wore them over the break, so I actually didn’t know that you don’t like them.” You’d never know that we were just cuddling under the covers a few minutes ago, having our own version of a heart-to-heart.

“That was break. Not appropriate for school. Find another pair, or I’ll find one for you,” Mom says.

I huff my way over to the dresser.

“Nothing’s clean,” I say again, showing her the mostly empty drawer.

“You should have thought about that before today, Ellis,” Mom says. “You know you’re old enough to do your own laundry, and with the hours I work most weeks, I really need your help around here. And not just with your own clothes. If you see the towels piling up, it would be nice if you could wash them after school or on the weekends.”

Mom pauses before continuing. “I finally got your father to pay half for a washing machine for this place. So I expect you to start washing your own clothes,” she says. “I don’t buy expensive appliances for my health. I put off other bills to get that thing, you know. And unless you want me writing out a list of chores for you, you’ll need to learn how to pull your weight around here, especially when I work six days a week.” Mom pauses to look at my drawer again, as though more pants might have magically appeared.

“Mom, I—” I begin, but she interrupts me.

“You fit into some of my clothes. And I’ll be happy to check my closet if you can’t problem solve. You have five minutes to figure this out.” She turns on her heel and shuts my bedroom door behind her.

Before I begin a search for clean clothes, I stop at my journal, which is sitting on top of my dresser, and write a single line: What’s this hot and cold thing that Mom does?

Okay, make it two lines: It’s weird and confusing and I kind of hate it.

I’m dressed by the time she barges back in. I settled for a pair of cargo pants that I only wore once before chucking them into the dirty laundry pile. They’re a little wrinkled, but a splash of water will take care of that. I don’t know if flannel and cargo pants go together, but they’ll have to today.

“Much better,” Mom says as she inspects me. “I’ll have breakfast ready for you when you’re finished washing up.”

I lock myself in the bathroom, and I don’t look in the mirror until after I load my toothbrush with toothpaste.

It’s worse than I thought.

* * *

I know I shouldn’t have done it. I know that excavating doesn’t help. But what else am I supposed to do when my whole face erupts like Mount Vesuvius?

Mount Vesuvius, by the way, hasn’t erupted since 1944, and my science teacher said it’s due to violently erupt again literally any minute now. I should tell her that my face has the world’s most famous volcano beat.

My forehead got it the worst. At least three new pimples that now look like boulders after my excavation work. I should have just left things alone.

I douse my bangs in hair spray and spread them across my forehead. Hopefully that disguises at least some of my fresh breakout well enough. I wish I could wear my hair over my entire face.

I leave the bathroom and head through the living room and into our tiny kitchen. Mom is already sitting at the table eating eggs. She drops her fork when she sees me.

“Oh, Ellis, what did I tell you about picking?” she says. “Honey, it only makes things worse, you know this.”

“I know, Catherine,” I say as I squeeze back tears. She hates when I call her by her first name. But did she really have to call me out, as if I don’t know what I look like?

I squeeze my body into the spot across from her. There’s barely any room in our kitchen and I have to suck in my stomach to sit in the chair, which is wedged between the table and the wall.

“Firstly, watch your tone,” she warns. “And what on earth were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t, obviously,” I say.

I don’t have to look at Mom to know that she’s scanning my face with her eyes. “You really did a number on your skin this time.”

Why is she saying this like I don’t already know it?

“Well, leave it alone for a few days,” she says. “You might have some scars in the end, but it’ll go away.”

Fat chance. Whenever one eruption goes away, at least three more take its place.

“Can I use some of your cover-up?” I say. “Just for today? It’s not like you ever wear your makeup. Please?” It’s true. Mom has this humongous toiletry bag full of more makeup than a beauty supply store, but she never uses any of it. She always says it’s for a special occasion, but we don’t really have any of those.

“Ellis,” Mom sighs. “You know the answer to that. It’s enough that I let you wear lip gloss. Besides, anything of mine that you put on your breakouts will make them stand out more.”

Mom is pale and blond because of her Irish roots. She’s so light that you can even see veins around her eyes. I look more like my dad, at least with his dark curly hair. He says his ancestors are mostly Greek and that’s where his wild hair comes from. My own hair is what Mom calls dirty brown (I hate when she says that) and my skin color is somewhere in between theirs, but a little closer to Mom’s. And just like Mom, my skin totally burns if I even think about stepping out in the sun. Meanwhile, Dad’s olive skin could probably tan in a hurricane.

Still, Mom’s makeup definitely doesn’t match my tone. I’ve tested it when I knew she wasn’t paying attention.

“Well, can I get my own stuff, then?” I ask.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” she says. “No more makeup until high school. Maybe if you stop worrying about your skin so much, it’ll heal on its own.”

My mouth is too dry to speak. How can I stop worrying about my skin when she keeps looking at me like that?

Copyright © 2026 by Christina Wyman

Copyright © 2026 by James Lancett