Plan Z by Leslie Kove Book

As a little girl growing up in Squitchit, New York, Leslie Kove doubtless imagined that she and her two siblings would one day marry, have kids, and make ordinary productive lives for themselves. But by 1970, her brother, Peter, has died in Vietnam. Her sister, Susan, a scholarship student at Bennington College in Vermont, has changed her name to Sabra-Sou and dances topless in political demonstrations. And Leslie, a high school senior, has no idea what to say when people ask her what she's going to do with her life: She needs a plan.

Kirkus Reviews

A trip back in time to the 1970s and all, supposedly, that was groovy. Eighteen-year-old Leslie Kove has an A-to-Z plan for her life: get out of Squitchit, an upstate New York hamlet, and leave her weird family behind. She's had it with her gun-waving reactionary father and spineless alcoholic mother; especially since her older brother Peter got sent home from Vietnam in a body bag, not too long after her father swore that no "son of his would be a commie fag draft dodger." Her sister Susan has decamped for Bennington, where Leslie also hangs for a while, wondering what the hell happened to her perfect cheerleader sister, who now dances half-naked on tables to earsplitting rock 'n' roll. There follows an obligatory move to New York, where Leslie shares a crummy loft with other arty kids, including Leon, a guerilla-theater freak, and a couple of (gasp!) lesbians. At an ad agency, she works as a typist and is befriended by tough-talking receptionist Sally Washington, half-black and half-Jewish. Bravely, Leslie slogs away behind the copy machine while she thinks about what to do next. Back at the loft, meanwhile, she's deflowered by Leon, but not before she figures out how to get a grip on a jelly-filled diaphragm (big yucks). Sally joins the nascent feminist movement and Leslie watches a march or two from the sidelines. She travels, first to Paris ("very nice even though they spoke French and you couldn't read the signs"), then to a Greek island, where she joins an ashram and falls madly in love with Soma, the resident swami. A fellow cult member kills her beloved cat out of sheer spite, and Leslie returns to New York, carrying a bag of cat food all the way. Etcetera. A standard talethat features a particularly irritating adolescent narrator. The Curse of Holden Caulfield strikes again.