by Lara Avery ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 25, 2016
Indelible.
A high school valedictorian with big plans to flee her small town gets a degenerative genetic disease.
Two months ago, 18-year-old Sammie was diagnosed with Niemann-Pick Type C. People with NPC usually die as children; it’s extremely rare for symptoms not to appear until adolescence, so Sammie’s timeline is unknown. NPC brings dementia and systemic physical deterioration—as Sammie edits Wikipedia to say, “Your shit is fucked.” To create a bulwark against memory loss, she documents her life on a laptop she carries everywhere, addressing it to Future Sam, who she still hopes can leave Vermont behind for NYU. Her narrative voice is sardonic, distinctive, wildly intelligent, and sometimes hilarious: her parents’ church is “angular…and white, like most of its parishioners” (including her family, presumably). Sammie’s first debacle is losing a national debate tournament due to a dementia episode smack in the middle. Fluctuations in cognitive function show in her narrative voice. She needs tooth-brushing reminder notes; she regresses in age and doesn’t recognize her youngest sister. At one point she fills three pages typing “die.” Yet over this summer that should have been pre-college, Sammie experiences romance, reconnects with a childhood friend and with her bucolic mountainside, and writes minibios about her young siblings that extend to their adulthoods, giving them the long futures that she won’t have. Readers will feel her mind and heart shifting with the illness.
Indelible. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: July 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-316-28377-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poppy/Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016
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by Lara Avery
by Laura Nowlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind.
In this companion novel to 2013’s If He Had Been With Me, three characters tell their sides of the story.
Finn’s narrative starts three days before his death. He explores the progress of his unrequited love for best friend Autumn up until the day he finally expresses his feelings. Finn’s story ends with his tragic death, which leaves his close friends devastated, unmoored, and uncertain how to go on. Jack’s section follows, offering a heartbreaking look at what it’s like to live with grief. Jack works to overcome the anger he feels toward Sylvie, the girlfriend Finn was breaking up with when he died, and Autumn, the girl he was preparing to build his life around (but whom Jack believed wasn’t good enough for Finn). But when Jack sees how Autumn’s grief matches his own, it changes their understanding of one another. Autumn’s chapters trace her life without Finn as readers follow her struggles with mental health and balancing love and loss. Those who have read the earlier book will better connect with and feel for these characters, particularly since they’ll have a more well-rounded impression of Finn. The pain and anger is well written, and the novel highlights the most troublesome aspects of young adulthood: overconfidence sprinkled with heavy insecurities, fear-fueled decisions, bad communication, and brash judgments. Characters are cued white.
A heavy read about the harsh realities of tragedy and their effects on those left behind. (author’s note, content warning) (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781728276229
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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by Laura Nowlin ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 2013
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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