Every Last Promise

Starred review from February 1, 2015
A small-town girl is forced to choose between doing the right thing or fitting in after a night of unforgettable violence. Kayla adores her hometown of Winbrooke, Missouri. While her three best friends, Jen, Selena and Bean, all dream of moving away to attend college, she hopes never to leave. But everything changes the night of Jen's party, when a boy is killed in an accident involving Kayla. After a summer spent with her aunt in Kansas City while she recovers, nothing can prepare Kayla for the way her once-beloved town has turned on her. The halls of the high school are filled with whispers, and even Jen and Selena greet her with hostility. But Kayla witnessed a rape at that party, and it led to her role in the accident-and some people know this. If she admits to any of it, she risks losing even more than she already has, forever. Lyrically written and ebbing with suspense, the story of Kayla's hometown implicates everyone involved for their silence and for the grotesque hero worship that guarantees it. Kayla's no hero, either, and her journey to finding her truth is as authentically difficult as they come. Halbrook interleaves the stories of before and after chapter by chapter, leading characters and readers to the devastating conclusion. A devastating, important examination of the far-reaching, insidious nature of rape culture. (Fiction. 14-18)

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February 1, 2015

Gr 9 Up-Unlike her three best friends-Jen, Bean, and Selena-high school junior Kayla wants to remain in their small town of Winbrook, MO, forever. When Kayla causes a car wreck after a party that kills a classmate and injures Jen's twin and high school football star, Jay, Kayla spends her summer with her aunt in Kansas City. Upon her return, she is a temporary outcast and the foursome becomes a threesome with Bean forging new friendships. Though Kayla pretends not to remember what happened the night of the accident, she does. She remembers wanting to crash the car and the reasons why. Told in alternating chapters between the spring before and the fall after the accident, Halbrook slowly reveals the truth of what happened that night. The author explores the effects a "boys will be boys" mentality can have on a town, and how personal safety and comfort are often valued more than a friend's justice. Though readers may be conflicted over Kayla's decisions and priorities, most will connect with her strong characterizaton and feel her come alive on the page with genuine turmoil. VERDICT Halbrook presents a fictionalized exploration of why so many sexual assault cases are never reported that is on par with yet different from Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak (Farrar, 1999).-Adrienne L. Strock, Teen Library Manager, Nashville Public Library

Copyright 2015 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2015
Grades 8-11 There is one place in the entire world that Kayla loves most, and that's her hometown of Winbrooke, Missouri. All of this changes one terrible spring night when Kayla is involved in a car crash, and one person is killed. Kayla pretends that she can't remember what actually happenedbut she does. She lets people assume that it was an accidentbut it wasn't. Kayla saw something she shouldn't have seen. Now, months later, as Kayla starts her senior year, she hears her classmates whispering about Killer Kayla. Kayla tries to resume the life she once loved, but she cannot pretend that her friendships are not cloaked in lies. Kayla's already lost so much; if she finally speaks the truth, she could lose it all. Though this novel is more of a character study than an outright thriller, readers will nonetheless be propelled forward out of curiosity. What did happen on that night? Is Kayla as culpable as she claims? Fans of Jennifer Brown's novels, which often feature moral dilemmas, will appreciate Kayla's story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)