Shanahan, Lisa. The sweet terrible glorious year I truly completely lost it

Shanahan, Lisa. The sweet terrible, glorious year I truly completely lost it. Delacorte, 2007 [978-0-385-73516-2]
Gemma has an interesting year. Her sister decides to get married to a boy from a military family. They two families are nothing alike... can they ever get along or even understand each other in planning for the wedding or performing the ceremony. Meanwhile Gemma tries out for her HS play, The Tempest by Shakepeare and Raven, a boy from the local thug family also tries out and falls for her. Gemma does not understand Raven, his life, or his family but the play seems to parallel her life and draws the two together. Then after the cast party for the play there is a terrible tragedy in town. Will Gemma ever understand Raven? Can the two families getting married together ever understand each other. Will Gemma blow her cork? I found the first 3/4 of this 297 page book to be confusing.. not worth the struggle and although some things pull together at the end and make sense, my whole response to the books is, "What is the point of the whole thing?" To top it off it is written by an Australian author with many "Austrailaisms" and there is no glossary. Many times there were words, I had no idea what they were. I don't see the point to this book or a reason to put up with the confusion to read it... I nearly didn't finish it.