The Way Back to You

March 1, 2016
After a loved one dies, two teens embark on a road trip to visit the recipients of her donated organs. Cheerleader Cloudy is devastated by the sudden death of her teammate and longtime best friend, Ashlyn, as is Ashlyn's boyfriend, baseball-champion Kyle. Though they're both grieving, they handle their emotions differently: Cloudy, although wrestling with things internally, keeps a cool exterior; Kyle is more outwardly emotional and upset. When Cloudy discovers that Ashlyn's organs have been donated--and sees the list of recipients--she decides that she and Kyle need to take a road trip to see the people who are now able to live because of Ashlyn's gifts. On the road, the pair must confront their feelings about Ashlyn's death and, in time, slowly learn that they have feelings for each other. In alternating chapters from Cloudy's and Kyle's perspectives, their dual narratives thoughtfully and realistically explore their raw feelings of grief and heartache as they meet the people who were able to live because of the death of their friend. However, at times, their voices can sound oddly similar and muddled. Their inevitable romance meanders, feeling boilerplate and blandly vanilla, right down to their white, middle-class, popular, cheerleader-and-jock characterizations. Ambitious but uneven; expect only the most die-hard romance fans to swoon over this. (Fiction. 13-16)

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April 1, 2016

Gr 8 Up-After 16-year-old Ashlyn Montel dies in a bicycle accident, her best friend Claudia (Cloudy) Marlowe and her boyfriend Kyle Ocie both have problems moving on. But while Cloudy internalizes her grief, Kyle just falls apart. They're not even friends anymore, so they suffer separately. Then Cloudy finds out that Ashlyn's organs were donated after her death, and stumbles upon printouts of emails from some of the recipients. She impulsively grabs the emails and decides that she needs to visit these people, none of whom live closer than a seven-hour drive from her home in Bend, OR. Realizing that she shouldn't do the trip on her own (and not just because her rattletrap car couldn't manage it), she convinces Kyle to accompany her. Of course he's reluctant at first but finally agrees, thinking they're only going to Sacramento, CA, and back. As the journey progresses through California to Arizona and then Nevada, the two former friends begin to come to terms with their grief. VERDICT This is a moving and compelling exploration of the different ways to process grief. For YA collections looking for well-crafted realistic fiction.-Marlyn Beebe, Long Beach Public Library, CA

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