JUST ANOTHER DEAD BOY

A girlfriend for hire and a skeptical boy find genuine love.

Eighteen-year-old Regan Albright works at Elite Elect, an upscale mountain resort two hours from Manhattan, where wealthy guests go to die. The day before their Death Dates—which appear on everyone’s body at birth—they undergo peaceful euthanasia, avoiding a potentially unpleasant end. Regan and her gay best friend, Micah Lowry, work for the resort’s Romeo-and-Juliet service, curating dating experiences secretly paid for by teens’ parents. In these roles, the pair live decadently before returning home to the dilapidated staff housing; Regan has her single mom, who struggles with alcohol and works service jobs at the resort, and Micah has loving foster parents, the Acostas. Regan’s latest client, irritatingly perfect English teen Jude Daly, accidentally overhears a conversation that gives the game away. Jude isn’t thrilled by anything to do with the resort—and Regan finds him insufferable. Still, he asks Regan to go along with the arrangement. She might get a permanent contract for satisfying clients like the famous Dalys, with their vodka business and research institute that’s trying to find a way to survive Death Dates; he just wants to bring his parents some peace. The white-presenting pair grow from barely tolerating one another to falling deeply in love, as they debate living fully, letting go, and being emotionally vulnerable. By turns philosophical, funny, suspenseful, and moving, this work builds a convincing world populated with sympathetically fallible people.

Achingly tender and leavened with hope.