death

"Everyone thinks it was because of the snow. And in a way, I suppose that's true."

When Mia and her family go out for a drive that snowy morning, none of them realize everything is about to change in If I Stay (2009) by Gayle Forman. It was a freak accident. A random act. But suddenly, a truck swerves into their car. The next thing Mia knows she is staring down at the dead bodies of her mother and father. She can't find her younger brother, Teddy. What Mia does find is her own broken body being rushed to a hospital.

Before the accident Mia had a lot of decisions to make about her future. Should she follow her first love--music--to Juilliard in New York? Should she stay on the West Coast to be with her boyfriend? But after the accident, Mia only has one choice. Should she stay?  read more »

A Map of the Known World (April 2009) is Lisa Ann Sandell's third novel (it was also the first book I have discovered that was edited by Aimee Friedman a neat-o YA author in her own right whom I met very, very, very briefly at a reading). She has two other critically acclaimed novels under her belt. According to her website, those previous books were written in verse. I feel like saying that now because I want to address the tone of the book, before saying anything else about it. At times the writing felt erratic--sometimes profoundly authentic, at other times very much like a writer writing as a teen. That might be due in part to Sandell's experience with free verse. It might also be because I was reading and uncorrected advanced proof. I don't know, but I wanted to point it out all the same. Now you know.  read more »