HER OWN TERMS <i> by Judith Grossman (Soho Press: $16.95, 277 pp.) </i>

Irene, winning a state scholarship to Oxford, leaves the oppressed world of women and the underclass for the equally terrible, oppressing world of men and the upper class.--Carolyn See

RACHEL AND HER CHILDREN Homeless Families in America by Jonathan Kozol (Crown Publishers: $16.95; 261 pp.) Kozol attacks attitudes and policies that perpetuate homelessness and allows the monologues of women, men and children to speak their desperation and helplessness.--Garry Abrams