Neverworld Wake

April 9, 2018
Beatrice Hartley, 19, has spent the past year distancing herself from her four best friends after the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Jim, in their senior year. With summer ending and the former friends gathering to celebrate a birthday, Bee decides to find out what they know. The reunion doesn’t go as expected, and a near-fatal drunk-driving accident brings the teens into the Neverworld, a place between life and death, where they live the same day over and over again until they can agree on who gets to survive. Caught between trying to save her life and solving the mystery surrounding Jim’s death, Bee discovers that everyone has a devastating secret. Bestselling adult writer Pessl (Special Topics in Calamity Physics) adeptly creates a compelling nightmare world while maintaining a foothold in realism and providing many wholly unexpected developments. She doesn’t shy away from painting her characters as deeply flawed, allowing their choices in the Neverworld to show who they truly are. Thought-provoking and suspenseful, Pessl’s YA debut delves into questions of whether even close friends are truly knowable. Ages 12–up. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM.

Narrator Phoebe Strole's youthful voice guides listeners through Pessl's paranormal young adult thriller. A year after their friend Jim died in mysterious circumstances, five young people are hit by a drunk driver and arrive in the Neverworld Wake, a purgatorial in-between where they're allowed to choose, by voting, one person to survive. Until they reach a consensus, they repeatedly relive the 11 hours of the Wake, and they decide to use the infinite time to investigate Jim's death. Strole's expressive performance complements Pessl's larger-than-life characters, including a disaffected heiress and a drawling Southerner who refers to his teenage peers as "child." Pessl expertly balances her pace and intensity to keep listeners on the edge of their seats without losing the thread of the complex plot. E.C. � AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine