EVER SINCE

The summer before senior year, friendships are fractured by secrets and a revelation of sexual abuse.

Virginia has a reputation for making poor choices, including sleeping with Edison, her friend Thalia’s boyfriend, behind her back. She and her close-knit group of friends are determined to spend the summer living it up, when suddenly, without explanation, her best friend, Poppy, leaves to spend the summer at her grandpa’s. Virginia feels unmoored because Poppy offered her harbor from her own house, where she does not feel safe amid her neglectful parents’ parties that include Him, their friend who sexually abused her when she was a child. Virginia starts spending time with Rumi, Poppy’s boyfriend, with whom she develops an intense emotional connection. But when she realizes that Rumi’s 11-year-old sister is being groomed by this same abuser, Virginia must find the courage to finally speak up. What follows is a harrowing journey, compounded by the fact that not everybody is receptive to her revelations. In the process of coming to terms with what happened to her, Virginia must also reckon with her revictimization and ask whether her sexual activity with Edison was consensual. Virginia, Thalia, Edison, and Poppy are cued White; ethnically ambiguous Rumi has reddish-brown skin. The supporting cast includes diversity in race, gender identity, and sexual orientation; these characters sometimes feel too perfect to be fully realized people.

Lyrical prose combines with a searing indictment of how society treats young women.