Amy Zhang crashes onto the YA scene with this debut novel about a physics student who puts Newton’s Laws of Motion into practice by driving her Mercedes into a tree. A mysterious narrator with close ties to Liz Emerson tells this nonlinear story and pieces together the puzzle of what sent Liz speeding off Highway 34.
The narrator urges Liz to stay alive, powerless to do anything beyond that, as everyone awaits Liz's recovery. Liz is the most popular junior at Meridian High, who became lonely after her father died and her mother busied herself with business trips. Liz is no innocent. She once rallied an entire class to bully the classmate who would become her best friend during a pop quiz simply because Liz didn't know any of the answers. She records a video that goes viral of Liam Oliver at an awkward angle, which ignites false rumors. Zhang keeps the morality scale gray, skillfully redeeming Liz in small but loud ways: Liz's many regrets as she's speeding down the highway, and when she signs up to be an organ donor a week before her crash so her "heart will beat for someone who deserves it."
The snapshots of Liz's friendship with the narrator effectively reveal the cause and effects on a child who would grow up to become hopeless and destructive to herself and to those orbiting her. An uplifting ending awaits readers. A good pick for fans of Lauren Oliver's Before I Fall and Gayle Forman's If I Stay. --Adam Silvera, children's bookseller