The Stepping Off Place

May 15, 2020
A rising high school senior copes with her best friend's unfathomable suicide. For six years Reid, 17, has warded off anxiety, social awkwardness, and the loss of her mother's attention (her younger brother is autistic and her mother has thrown herself into fundraising for autism research) by hiding behind vibrant Hattie. But since Hattie summers on her affluent family's private island in Maine, with unreliable cell service and no Wi-Fi, Reid hadn't seen her in weeks when, days before the start of school, she learns that Hattie has drowned, and her death is likely a suicide. The storyline bounces back and forth between past and present to fill in details of Reid and Hattie's relationship, including all Hattie deliberately hid from Reid--and quite a lot that Reid hid from Hattie. Reid always understood that her role in Hattie's life involved not demanding answers or intimacy. At the same time, Hattie was central to Reid's life, and learning to navigate each day without her seems impossible. Reid and Hattie are white and straight; other important characters are Asian, Latino, and gay. The large cast of characters, particularly the high school students, are well and sensitively drawn. The novel doesn't glorify suicide or dwell on the details of Hattie's death. Instead it explores loss, futility, honesty, and love, with a richness of prose and excellence of characterization rare in a first-time author. Despite the difficult topic, a story to savor. (Fiction. 14-18)

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July 1, 2020
Grades 9-12 Reid has allowed herself to be just a little hopeful about the summer before her senior year, even if it will be spent without her best friend, Hattie, who's once again off on her family's island. But Reid's entire world comes crashing down when she gets the news that Hattie has died by suicide, meaning she won't just have to walk through the rest of her life without her best friend, she can't return to the world of her past without questioning every memory. Rosenblum's debut novel is a beautifully written examination not only of the sadness of grief, but of the uncertainty it can bestow upon everything, from your relationship with others to your relationship with yourself. Perfect fans of Jennifer Niven's All the Bright Places (2015), The Stepping Off Place is a novel that moves beyond a story of loss into one of self-discovery, never trying to discount the pain its teenage protagonist has to get through to reach a new version of herself.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)