Marin Delaney is alone in her college dormitory at Christmastime, having decided to stay on campus in New York for a month-long semester break after Gramps, her only family, died back home in San Francisco. The staff gave her the groundskeeper's number in case anything went wrong. It's obvious that a lot has gone wrong already for Marin--but the reader is in the dark at first, left to discover Marin's history in flashbacks to her life with Gramps in California.
Anyone who has ever fantasized about spending an entire month completely alone will appreciate Marin's intimate, vivid descriptions of a cleared-out dorm, surrounded by snow, so quiet she can hear the heat come on. She makes lists of things she'll do: make soup, meditate, watch documentaries, find new music. From her emotional depths, she wonders how she'll act when Mabel--the beautiful friend she used to "practice kissing" with, until neither one was practicing anymore--flies 3,000 miles to visit her: "I don't know what I will do with my face: if I will be able to smile, or even if I should."
All the awkwardness and emotion of Mabel's visit are wonderfully portrayed, as the two young women do a delicate dance of friendship and love, hurt and healing, mostly inside an eerily empty dorm. In the hands of Nina LaCour (Hold Still; The Disenchantments; co-author of You Know Me Well), the story of a grieving girl and her profound sense of loneliness is bittersweet and hopeful. Marin is not alone, and in this poetic, skillfully crafted story, lonely teens may see it's possible that they aren't, either. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA editor, Shelf Awareness