BOOK REVIEW / FICTION : Being 14, Coming of Age Were Never This Hilarious : YOUTH IN REVOLT: The Journals of Nick Twisp--A Novel <i> by C.D. Payne</i> ; Doubleday $21, 496 pages

Remember being 14? Awkward, confused, competitive, moody, oversensitive, overbearing, affected, reckless, sullen, existential, romantic, horny. In the course of an afternoon, the typical ninth-grader might exhibit every one of those characteristics, being a childish soul frustrated with beginner’s tasks, anxious to exercise adult power. Overhear the phrase “If I knew then what I know now . . . “ and the subject is usually adolescence, the one period in life when mistakes seem constant, when humiliation comes visiting on a regular basis.

Few people would want to be 14 again, but it’s a tempting fantasy, provided you could come back as Nick Twisp, the hero of C.D. Payne’s “Youth in Revolt.” No, he’s not rich and handsome and popular and athletic--indeed, he’s almost the reverse, for Nick lives in the flats of Oakland, comes from a broken home, hates sports and spends most of his bathroom time examining new pimples and worrying over a possibly receding hairline.

Nick does boast, though, precocious intelligence and a flair for gallows humor, which he displays to great effect in this journal of an adolescent plague year. “Youth in Revolt” is an unstintingly hilarious black comedy, almost certainly the funniest book you’ll read this year, and it takes much of its life from the fact that Nick is much too smart for his own good--a trait shared, it seems, by most 14-year-olds.

Nick, for one thing, is fully conscious of his adolescent metamorphosis--though in his case it comes with a minor twist in that he is devolving from “brown-nosing honor student” to “modern youth in open revolt.” The cause is readily apparent: Sheeni Saunders, the fabulously beautiful, fabulously intelligent, fabulously sophisticated fellow 14-year-old he meets during a trailer-camp weekend at Clear Lake.

It’s love at first sight--truly, madly, deeply on Nick’s part, and teasingly, tantalizingly, perhaps temporarily on Sheeni’s.

A major problem--one of many--is that Sheeni lives in Ukiah with strange, strait-laced parents, but Nick will not be denied, will not let love wither, for life has acquired a purpose. Sheeni has promised, sort of, that their subsequent reunion will be carnal, and Nick can hardly contain himself.

Nick’s idea from the start is that he and Sheeni, archetypal rebellious youths, will “be revolting together.” His hopes are soon dashed, however, because Nick has to do most of the maintenance work required in a long-distance relationship; Sheeni has a stand-by boyfriend, the almost-perfect Trent, and her parents, unlike Nick’s, remain married and watchful. Most of Nick’s plans to see his beloved go awry, until Sheeni--inveterate Francophile, admirer of New Wave cinema--advises him to “be bad, be very bad,” hinting that an outlaw Nick, a parentally disapproved Nick, is most attractive.

Nick soon puts as much energy into becoming an under-age Jean-Paul Belmondo as he once put into school (“I never realized,” he says, “falling in love involved so much deception”): He wrecks his mother’s boyfriend’s car and inadvertently burns down half of Berkeley in a bid to force his own exile to Ukiah, where Nick’s cretinous, bimbo-loving father--through Sheeni’s machinations--has gotten a job. Nick’s plan, this time, actually works--though upon arrival in Ukiah he finds that Sheeni has unexpectedly moved to Santa Cruz, having been accepted at an all-French academy.

The obstacles faced by Romeo and Juliet, as may be guessed by now, are nothing compared to those faced by Nick and Sheeni.

At high school in Ukiah, Nick befriends Vijay, a Young Republican born in India, only to see him become a rival for Sheeni’s affection; he develops a side crush on Vijay’s sister, and his attempts to bed Apurva--when Sheeni’s never-certain love appears to falter--naturally backfire; he fakes his disappearance, for by this time love-induced crimes have led to Nick’s becoming a Most Wanted Boy in a number of legal jurisdictions.

And that’s not the half of it; Nick has developed a second personality, the reliably troublemaking Francois, to gird his loins for Belmondian exploits, and for the last third of the novel lives as a woman, Carlotta, to be near Sheeni undetected. This last impersonation leads to one of “Youth in Revolt’s” many improbable moments: “Dressed as a woman,” Nick writes, “I was eavesdropping on my father making love to my best friend’s mother who had once tried to seduce me. What a field day my future analyst will have with this episode.”

Improbable or not, though, Nick is irresistible, for his first encounters with adult phenomena always seem to bring out an appropriately warped response or an almost-brilliant insight. When love finally does conquer all at the novel’s close, we’re very happy for him, and Sheeni, too--although thankful, by the same token, that they’re not our kids.

Coming-of-age novels are a dime a dozen. “Youth in Revolt” has all the hallmarks of a classic in the genre, however: Nick’s voice is unique and indelible, Payne’s language rich and inventive. C.D. Payne has set a high standard for himself, and at the novel’s close, one can only reflect that he’ll be unlikely to top this initial effort. For all that, though, I’d sure like to see him try.