One Death, Nine Stories

June 16, 2014
The second editorial collaboration between Aronson and Smith (after 2011’s Pick-Up Game) collects nine short stories by Ellen Hopkins, A.S. King, Rita Williams-Garcia, Chris Barton, Nora Raleigh Baskin, and more; not unlike Adele Griffin’s The Unfinished Life of Addison Stone, also out this season, the book is built around the influence of a deceased teenager, remembered and considered by those around him. Kevin Nicholas, charismatic and angry, has been shaped by his father’s suicide; eight years later, 19-year-old Kevin’s body is zipped into a bag, and everyone from his younger sister and high school peers to the cosmetologist prettying his corpse dwell on their relationships with Kevin or use his death to evaluate their own lives. Predictably, anything good that people think they knew about Kevin proves false. The girls connect him with sex, the boys with innocence-destroying competition. The impact of many details and events depends on readers’ willingness to read into what is said. There are plenty of dots to connect and introspection from adolescents on the precipice of something new and unknown, but most of these authors have done better in longer formats. Ages 14–up.

August 1, 2014

Gr 9 Up-Kevin Nicholas, a popular high school football player, has committed suicide, though readers don't know that at first. In fact, through nine stories, each told by a different author and from a different point of view, readers come to know only a little about Kevin himself. Instead, readers observe the reactions of Kevin's sister, his best friends, people who barely knew him, even of the funeral home workers who handles his body. The death of a teenager, especially by his own hand, can be impossible to understand, but lives don't stop just because one life did. Each chapter deals with the process of initiation, acceptance, growing up, and moving on even in the face of death. The authors included are all well-known young adult writers, such as Ellen Hopkins, Rita Williams-Garcia, and A. S. King, and it is clear that they know and understand their audience. Despite the differing perspectives and characters, the writing is remarkably consistent in tone. The vignette feel of each section may appeal to reluctant readers who can manage a narrative in small chunks without losing the arc of the story itself. More enthusiastic readers will devour it whole. Keep it in mind as bibliotherapy, should the unfortunate need arise, or as a springboard for journaling or creative writing.-Katherine Koenig, The Ellis School, PA

Copyright 2014 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 1, 2014
The death of Kevin, at once charismatic and tortured, is at the epicenter of this collection of short stories by nine well-known authors for teens, exploring the lives of his peers, acquaintances and family as it reveals how each of them is affected.A withdrawn 18-year-old is clamped firmly under the guiding wing of his uncle, a mortician, in the opening piece that begins an intricate weaving together of a host of seemingly unconnected characters. Many of the older teens in these vignettes are troubled, unable to make sense of their places in families that don't understand or accept them and searching for belonging instead with their friends. Their experiences are sensitively portrayed, and they struggle with very real issues of ethnic and sexual identity. The overall tone is unrelentingly bleak, perhaps in part because the window offered into each of their lives is so brief. Some barely knew Kevin, and others cared for him deeply, even as they were hurt by his emotional unavailability, the stage for which was set when he was young by his father's suicide. One story even concerns a character who didn't know him at all, viewing the tragedy through the technological disconnect distinctive to modern social media.Complex and emotionally demanding, this collection aims for and will resonate with serious readers of realistic fiction. (Short stories. 14-20)

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August 1, 2014
Grades 9-12 Using a concept similar to that of their Pick-Up Game (2011), editors Aronson and Smith round up YA authors to weave together nine stories around a fulcrumin this case, the suicide of charming, manipulative 19-year-old Kevin Nicholas. Who dies at nineteen? one character asks. Don't come expecting a clean answer. The effect, rather, is the opposite: denying the one-note explanations so common to media reports of tragedy to offer a grayer perspective. Fittingly, no story is told from Kevin's point of view. Rita Williams-Garcia's fantastic opener introduces Morris, a blank-minded boy working at his uncle's mortuary the day Kevin's corpse arrives. Both Ellen Hopkins and A. S. King look at sexual and romantic relationships; Torrey Maldonado examines one of the young men in Kevin's thrall; and so on. A couple stories are almost too tangential, but there are, of course, standouts, such as Will Weaver's I Have a Gun, about Kevin's little sister, who comes into ownership of the suicide weapon. As a full picture, the book feels thin, but in parts, it's fascinating.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)