The Arrival of Someday

May 20, 2019
Eighteen-year-old Amelia (Lia) is fierce and full of bravado. She rules the rink at roller derby, rallies for causes, and has won a contest to paint a mural in nearby Harvard Square. But after she vomits blood in the middle of a derby bout, she learns that the rare disease she was born with, biliary atresia, is no longer under control, and she needs a liver transplant. Her best friend, Sibby, has started a campaign to find donors, and Lia’s distraught parents also try to better her chances of receiving a new organ. But it’s Will, her brother’s childhood friend, who offers Lia the most immediate help, distracting her from her worries until she’s forced to take a hard look at herself and what the future may hold. Malone (The Art of the Swap) frankly traces the changes in Lia’s physical and psychological states in this meticulously researched, grimly realistic portrait of a teen living with terminal illness. With its cast of convincing, empathic characters and touches of humor and hope, this heart-wrenching novel underscores the need for more organ donors. Ages 13–up.

May 15, 2019
A teen and her loved ones battle her liver disease. Malone (The Art of the Swap, 2018, etc.) presents a badass high school senior in need of a liver transplant. Eighteen-year-old Lia Linehan has grown up aware that her rare congenital condition, biliary atresia, could someday cause her liver to cease functioning, but, up until the novel's start, she has never let that knowledge in any way constrain her interests or actions. In fact, one might argue that her passionate disposition and affinity for roller derby, where Lia relishes her role as a speedy, take-no-prisoners jammer, all stem from her refusal to be cowed by her health condition. All that changes radically in the spring of her senior year, when a spontaneous upper-GI bleed at a derby bout makes Lia spew blood, turning the track "into the set of a slasher film." Lia, her best friend, and her family must then come to grips with the harsh reality that her liver has begun to fail and the timeline for needing a lifesaving transplant has greatly shortened. Told from Lia's perspective, Malone's realistic narrative presents her protagonist's resulting identity crisis well as she reckons with the perceptions of others and ultimately her own understanding of herself as a "MAYBE/MAYBE NOT DYING GIRL." Major characters are assumed white. Frank yet empathetic, Malone's gritty portrayal of interpersonal relations offers readers a telling example of a life-and-death ordeal from the inside out. (author's note) (Fiction. 13-adult)

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.