THE MOMENTOUS EXPIRATION OF TREMMY SINCLAIR

Stewart’s latest YA novel follows a dying teenager as he navigates his final days during his senior year at an elite private boarding school.

As the new school year begins, everyone keeps asking Tremendous “Tremmy” Sinclair what he did over the summer. It turns out that during the school break, he was diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer, went through chemotherapy, and broke up with his girlfriend via text. His parents want to pay for expensive experimental and alternative treatments, but he’s given up on the possibility of “miracles.” They offer to take him on a trip around the world during his last months of life, but Tremmy just wants to go to school, be with his friends, and try to “die well”—although he’s not yet sure what the latter would entail. Initially, Tremmy, who’s wealthy and White, doesn’t think about his privilege, but when his best friend, Jenkins, shoots a crossbow in the direction of a party crasher, he starts to question everything he’s ever known. The young man has surprising misadventures and gets into all sorts of juvenile (and not-so-juvenile) trouble with a new group of rebellious pals. Stewart’s rendition of high school life is so honest and realistic, and his characters so complex, that readers are sure to see aspects of themselves in these pages. The book offers a unique, well-paced, and darkly comedic coming-of-age story with a sometimes-unlikable narrator at its center. Along the way, Stewart even explores the option of assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses with no chance of survival. Indeed, there’s no shying away from themes of death in this story; Tremmy even has a habit of writing obituaries for everyone he knows. In this way, the book asks an intriguing question: Is thinking about one’s mortality unhealthy and morbid––or just a part of becoming an adult?

An offbeat tear-jerker with a sense of humor and a call to action.