FALLING THROUGH DARKNESS

This emotional page-turner uses present tense to create a sense of immediacy—and to mirror 17-year-old Ginny’s frame of mind as she refuses to think about the past. Four months ago, a car accident left her boyfriend Aidan dead. Ginny knows that she was in the car when it happened, but the nuances and dangers of their secretly abusive relationship are too painful, so she lets her mind float away into spacey distraction whenever feelings or memories threaten to overflow. Her bland façade conceals an expertly written shakiness until she opens up to her father’s tenant, Caleb. Caleb, himself traumatized by the death of his young son, is much older than Ginny and an inappropriate object for the intimacy she calls love. No false cheer at the end, but a sliver of hopefulness as Ginny begins to gain clarity and decides to tell her father the complicated truth. (Fiction. YA)