Dante Medema

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Scarly

Spencer’s lips quiver. Two tectonic plates sliding against one another until his whole body shakes next to me. If only she could see the aftershock she left in us all.

It starts in my chest—this sinking feeling—like losing a saved file or realizing you didn’t back anything up after hours of working on a project and your laptop dies. It spreads, a virus through my arms and legs and fingers and toes.

It’s like my leaves have been plucked too soon, stolen and shoved into a plastic bag, and I’m stuck. Unable to grow because the fertilizer I should have had is missing. Gone. Empty.

There’s a hole as quiet as death in my heart—it’s been hollowed out by the explosion of Vanessa’s car. The empty cavern is now just a graveyard for the shrapnel in my bones.

IMO funerals should be for the people closest to the person who died. So they aren’t sitting in a fishbowl while people who didn’t even know you at all tap on the glass as they watch us swimming around like brain-dead guppies in our grief.

Tomorrow, I’ll say hello to a brand-new version of V, bittersweet because this time I know hello will always end in goodbye. But it doesn’t stop me from hoping it doesn’t hurt as bad the second time around.

Kelsey Munson

NOT ME CRYING OVER BOB ROSS AND POP ROCKS.

An emotionally complex portrayal of secrets, loss, and grief from Dante Medema, Indies Introduce author of the Indie Next Pick title The Truth Project. 

Bailey and Vanessa shared everything: laughter, secrets, and packets of Pop Rocks to ward off bad days. But that all changed the night Vanessa left Bailey’s, headed for home, and ended up swerving off a cliff nowhere near her house. Now Bailey, who thought she knew Vanessa better than anyone in the world, is left with a million unanswered questions, and the only person with answers is gone.

To help grieve her loss, Bailey creates a chat bot of Vanessa using years’ worth of their shared text messages and emails. The more data she uploads to the bot, the more it feels like she’s really talking to her best friend. That is, until the bot starts dropping hints that there was more going on with Vanessa than Bailey realized—a secret so big, it may have contributed to Vanessa’s death.

This compelling puzzle of a story, filled with engrossing twists and turns, is written in alternating prose and text message formats. Teens will gobble up this fast-paced page-turner.

Beatrix Haase

This book was so sad, yet so beautiful. I love how to book jumped into the action and it didn't take too long to explain things. It was to the point and quick. 

I love reading books where there is mystery with loss. I think those books are always the books that I love the most. When the book is sad and sad, it's just too much. My heart is breaking and nothing in the book is making me happy to read it. In this book, you're sad, but you don't really know the character enough to like cry like some other books where you get attached.

Medema did a really good job at making us feel interested in the death even though we hardly know the character. There were many characters in the book, but towards the end those characters turn into the final 4-5 and you finish all of their stories. 

I really enjoyed this book and I wish I could read more. I want to know everything. 

Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read this book before it comes out. 

xoxo,
Bea

This book was so sad, yet so beautiful. I love how to book jumped into the action and it didn't take too long to explain things. It was to the point and quick.

I love reading books where there is mystery with loss. I think those books are always the books that I love the most. When the book is sad and sad, it's just too much. My heart is breaking and nothing in the book is making me happy to read it. In this book, you're sad, but you don't really know the character enough to like cry like some other books where you get attached.

Medema did a really good job at making us feel interested in the death even though we hardly know the character. There were many characters in the book, but towards the end those characters turn into the final 4-5 and you finish all of their stories.

I really enjoyed this book and I wish I could read more. I want to know everything.

xoxo,
Bea

brianna

I read this entire book in a day. In like 3 and a half hours. I devoured it. 

If you're hoping for a mystery though, this is not the book for that. This delves more into Vanessa's motivations and relationships that what happened to her, if that makes sense.

Plot-wise, it's an interesting premise that tugs at the heartstrings. Bailey's best friend, Vanessa, dies in a car accident leaving Bailey's house, but things stop adding up, so Bailey programs a chatbot with her convos with Vanessa (and the convos from some other people) in order to piece the "mystery" together, but also to feel as though Vanessa is still alive. 

This book tackles grief and messy relationships. There's definitely a profound notion of "we remember all the good about people" (and arguably it could be seen as beating the reader over the head with this idea) and how we don't always know everything about a person, even when we think we do. Definitely not a book to pick up if you want something lighthearted. This book served as a starting point for a cry session for me lol

Holly

I read this entire book in a day. In like 3 and a half hours. I devoured it. 

If you're hoping for a mystery though, this is not the book for that. This delves more into Vanessa's motivations and relationships that what happened to her, if that makes sense.

Plot-wise, it's an interesting premise that tugs at the heartstrings. Bailey's best friend, Vanessa, dies in a car accident leaving Bailey's house, but things stop adding up, so Bailey programs a chatbot with her convos with Vanessa (and the convos from some other people) in order to piece the "mystery" together, but also to feel as though Vanessa is still alive. 

This book tackles grief and messy relationships. There's definitely a profound notion of "we remember all the good about people" (and arguably it could be seen as beating the reader over the head with this idea) and how we don't always know everything about a person, even when we think we do. Definitely not a book to pick up if you want something lighthearted. This book served as a starting point for a cry session for me lol

I really, really enjoyed this book!

Zoe Smolen

I am obsessed with this book! Obsessed. I am feeling emotional damage after finishing it. 

This is a stunning exploration of grief and female friendship. Like I could 100% believe myself to act this way if I had lost my best friend at this age in my life and had the tech skills (also can I shout out this book for all the women in STEM!). 

Bailey's parents? Obsessed! Learning people can be flawed and we still love them? Obsessed. Cold, dark Alaska vibes? Obsessed. 

I saw so much of myself in Bailey and Vanessa (bookstagrammers represent) and really I could just like pick this book up and start reading it again.

Ian Brakspear

This was a One Day read and what a read it was, I have to say that I feel in love, and it’s taken me on an emotional roller coaster and when I reached the last page I just wanted to go back through and start all over again. 
 
Bailey and Vanessa, Best Friends who share everything or so they think, and Vanessa’s death leads Bailey to go hunting and digging up the secrets of why Vanessa never made it home that night. Wanting answers Bailey turns to AI and coding to create a Chat Bot of Vanessa that incorporates all their interactions (Texts, emails, Social Media posts) & it start to feel that Bailey still has her best friend at her side when she needs her the most and starts to find out the secrets Vanessa didn’t share. 
 
Watching Bailey go through the grieving process & start to process her life without her best friend at her side must have been devastating especially when you don’t have the answers to the questions you want to be answered. Grief can make you do some crazy things and yes, I can understand why Bailey did what she did, but it was still an invasion of privacy which is hard to overlook but she just needed her Friends and I’m glad that Tech could help her with this, it’s a Futuristic look at what is potential going to come to help those left behind grieving. 
 
This Book does have a key message right from the start that you should never Drink and Drive or Text and Drive; now it’s never said how Vanessa dies but I don’t think that the champagne and Texting while driving helped her in any way. 
 
Throughout the book we see Bailey open up and start to process things as well as moving her life on and creating new friendships and continuing her life with the memories of the past guiding her forward.
 
The book is set in Alaska and its super atmospheric and the landscape and heavy snow mention helped to bring this to life. The Writing Style is fab and leaves you unable to put this down as you will just want to carry the story on. The Story keeps you hooked with Cliff-hangers at every turn. I also loved the Mixed Media Element to the book; this brought this into the 21st century as you are seeing it through texts and emails as you go.
 
Overall, this story has an emotional storyline with real characters going through real life events. The incorporation of the AI was creative and having Bailey be a coder/into computers was nice to see.


KADY BURNS

This is my favorite YA book I have read so far this year. I tore through it in less than a day. I think the bot is a bit unbelievable and a convenient way to move the plot, but I don't even care because I felt Bailey in my soul.

For sure going to be in my top ten books I read this year. While the bot felt pretty unrealistic, I felt what Bailey was going through so deep in my soul. I finished this book in basically one sitting. So good.

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