Barbella

Book excerpt: What's the skateboarding daughter of professional bodybuilders to do when she's expelled from a posh East Coast boarding school in a cloud of sex scandal? Barbella goes back home to Venice Beach, California, where she tries to find new purpose in her old surroundings. Enter the new Maxi Ho Gym, a wild-eyed Korean ex-K-Pop star's gamble that "Muscle Beach" is ready for natural fitness without barbells and steroids. Barbella joins his ragtag team alongside a homeless philosopher, an ex-Navy SEAL, a brassy Brooklyn yoga instructor, a theatrical Compton dancer, and a handsome Chechen parkour star who falls for her. When financial realities threaten to close the gym, the only hope for a last-hour rescue comes from the unlikeliest of sources-and from a stunning decades-old secret. Full of crazy heart and cheerfully profane camaraderie, the "pali pali Boom Boom!" BARBELLA will make you cheer and crack up in equal measure.