LOVE YOU HATE YOU MISS YOU

How do you survive sobriety after killing your best friend? That question encapsulates Amy’s life, which she shares through letters to best friend Julia and journal entries, dated with the number of days since the accident that killed Julia. Amy is an engaging narrator, deeply hobbled by her guilt and just beginning to understand herself now that she does not drink. However, she describes drinking at school and then says she was diagnosed in treatment as a binge/party drinker, leaving readers confused and seeming to gloss over a serious problem. She claims her height and red hair as reasons behind the social awkwardness that led to the drinking without offering real depth; and, it turns out, she wasn’t even driving the car. Romance and a new friend, plus finally breaking through her parent’s devoted love for one another, allow Amy to move beyond her grief and recognize that Julia herself was no paragon. Wobbling between grit and romance, Scott’s latest serves neither well. Like Amy, the novel is flawed but appealing. (Fiction. 12 & up)