Kate McGovern

Everyone has a fear of missing out on something—a party, a basketball game, a hangout after school. But what if it’s life that you’ll be missing out on? When Astrid learns that her cancer has returned, she hears about a radical technology called cryopreservation that may allow her to have her body frozen until a future time when—and if—a cure is available. With her boyfriend, Mohit, and her best friend, Chloe, Astrid goes on a road trip in search of that possibility. To see if it’s real. To see if it’s worth it. For fear of missing out on everything.

Fear of Missing Out

I close my eyes and watch bits of light dance behind my eyelids. They look like the Perseids, pieces of burning comet debris rocketing through the night sky. Or shooting stars.

My mind is all mine. Strong enough still to make my own choices.

Now I understand that we're both going to start telling each other lies we hope will turn out to be true.

Astrid is disproportionately serious and unserious at the wrong times.

"Okay, so, it's a lot of time away from you."

There it is. Time. Time we don’t have. Time we can't waste.

"What is time, though?" I ask, stroking an imaginary goatee. "Time is but a social contract."

"Time is everything. I promised you I was all in. I want to be all in."

"Well, I'd give you the money if I had it. But since I don't... I give you the Internet."

Nothing will convince me this is pure coincidence. Iykyk.

"Astrid," Mom says, finally breaking the silence in our more-than-a-decade-old Honda. "It's okay. This is just a hiccup."

So far, it's reading very quickly and Mo and Astrid are cute. Very cute.

It feels like an impossible intrusion, like someone else's journal or checking their email, listening to my mother's private grief. The part she doesn't want me to see. I have to shut it out before it sucks me in and I can't think about anything else.

Things of beauty, and instruments of death.

Astrid isn't likable as a person. But then you remember that she's dying and she knows she's dying and then maybe it doesn't matter so much.

We know that she dies at the end, even though it's not put into words. My rating may have increased if the last chapter ended on her death.

Astrid isn't likable as a person. But then you remember that she's dying and she knows she's dying and then maybe it doesn't matter so much.

We know that she dies at the end, even though it's not put into words. My rating may have increased if the last chapter ended on her death.

Fear of Missing Out

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