“I found out two things today: One, I think I’m dying. “And two, my brother is a perv.”
So
begins the diary of 14-year-old Jenna Samuels, who is having a very bad
eighth-grade year. Her single mother spends all day in bed. Dad
vanished when she was eight. Her sixteen-year-old brother, Casey, tries
to hold together what’s left of the family by working two after-school
jobs—difficult, as he’s stoned all the time.
To make matters worse,
Jenna is sick. When she collapses one day, Casey tries to race her to
the hospital in their beat-up Prius and crashes instead.
Jenna
wakes up in the ER to find Casey beside her. Beatified. Literally. The
flab and zits? Gone. Before long, Jenna figures out that Casey didn’t
survive the accident at all. He’s an “A-word.” (She can’t bring herself
to utter the truth.)
Soon they discover that Jenna isn’t just dying;
she’s being poisoned. And Casey has been sent back to help solve the
mystery that not only holds the key to her survival, but also to their
mother’s mysterious depression and father’s disappearance.
