September 3, 2018
Something goes wrong with the plane taking Californian Elyse Schmidt and her fellow high school band members home from their trip to Paris. Knowing a crash is imminent, Elyse prays that at least she and her crush, Josh Harris, be saved. The two are the only survivors, and the second part of this intriguing novel finds Elyse living an idyllic life with Josh as her boyfriend. To escape the postcrash limelight, the teens and their families move to Wyoming, where Elyse has always felt she belonged, and where she inhabits a dream house and even has a pet horse. But something about Elyse’s new, near-perfect existence rankles. Short-term memory lapses prevent her from remembering what happened days or weeks earlier (she doesn’t remember learning how to ride her horse), and she doesn’t understand why she hasn’t grieved over the loss of her best friend, Kath, who died in the crash, or why all the people she’s recently met seem vaguely familiar. In a novel that challenges concepts of time and reality, Rivers (A Possibility of Whales) examines wish fulfillment and subconscious defenses. Although the story’s pace moves unevenly, Rivers evokes the surreal quality of the world that Elyse sees. Ages 13–up. Agent: Jennifer Laughran, Andrea Brown Literary.