A poignant and heartbreaking novel about a girl struggling to find herself again after surviving the freak accident that killed her father. From National Book Award finalist and two-time Michael L. Printz honoree, Candice Iloh.
“There were no cakes for Charli on birthdays. Not anymore. Sometimes she mourned this. It was a thing left behind at thirteen when her father, Maleek, decided it was time to trade them in for mountains.”
Charli and her father Maleek have a unique relationship centered on regularly escaping the urban confines of their home in Philadelphia and going off the grid in the West. Charli didn’t start out as a willing participant in these sojourns into the wilderness, but as the years pass, she comes to value them for themselves and for the opportunity to be with her father.
As they return from their last hike on Charli’s seventeenth birthday, their car is sideswiped by an out-of-control vehicle, leading to high-speed crash that leaves Charli badly injured and Maleek dead.
A year later, Charli is healed but Charli is not OK.
In the form of transcripts of Charli’s voice recordings and memories of previous birthday hikes, Iloh unspools an intimate and raw tale of grief and the rediscovery of self.
