THINGS I LEARNED WHILE I WAS DEAD

An English girl unravels what happened to her sister and herself after she awakens, disoriented, at an odd facility.

Seventeen-year-old Calico Brown’s 14-year-old sister, Asha, was being treated for cancer when she died. Calico made a hasty deal with an opportunistic man named Lucas Fates and persuades her mum to agree: The sisters will be cryogenically frozen in the hope that Asha can be reanimated when a cure has been found. Calico’s own freezing—assisting with their research as payment for Asha’s treatment—is supposed to be brief and followed by two years at the research facility in the U.S. Grim chapters alternate between Calico’s frantic, fearful first-person perspective and Asha’s short, lyrical poems, tracing a story of unethical medical practices. Calico’s voice prickles with dread with each discovery she makes. Clark’s debut includes a diverse cast of teens who also live at the facility, including Jem, an English boy who constantly talks to his dead brother; Taylor, who got the gender affirmation surgery his family couldn’t afford at the facility; and Veda, who’s from India and has had a leg amputated due to an error in her freezing process. White-presenting Calico’s singular focus on finding Asha propels the story even as she falls for Jem and yearns to escape. The book explores provocative scenarios including forced reproduction, but both the large cast and abundant ideas are too briefly developed.

A melancholy, absorbing mystery, filled with plenty of creepy details.