LIFE AND OTHER COMPLICATIONS

A girl with HIV tries to hide a secret from the boy she loves in Mullaly’s YA novel.

Aly Bennett has known Luke Harrison and Caroline Reese since she was 8, when she moved to Trinity, New Hampshire, to live with a foster family. The kids met in the Children Living With Life Threatening Conditions Support Group at the local hospital: Luke has an inoperable brain aneurysm, Caroline was diagnosed with leukemia,and Aly is living with HIV. Nine years later, the trio are still friends, Caroline’s cancer is in remission, and Aly has long been nursing a secret crush on Luke. She’s afraid to tell him about her feelings even after he offers to take her to prom. After all, she thinks, dating a girl with HIV is different than just being friends. To make things more complicated, the most traumatic event from her past has resurfaced: The man who gave Aly HIV when he sexually abused her is about to stand trial, and the district attorney wants Aly to testify against him. If she agrees, she has the chance to put him behind bars while also sparing his most recent victim the pain of appearing in court. However, everyone will find out that Aly didn’t contract HIV from her mother at birth, as she’s always said, and she wonders how Caroline and Luke will react to the fact that she never shared the truth with them. Over the course of the novel, Mullaly’s prose crackles with anxiety and longing, by turns, as when Aly and Luke dance at the prom: “Barely a breath separated us. But I didn’t feel trapped. And for a few minutes, I could pretend that we weren’t ourselves. That Luke wasn’t terminal, and I didn’t have HIV.” Aly and her friends are all well-drawn characters: typical teenagers who also must live with intense situations surrounding their health and well-being. Some readers may find the general premise of the novel to be a bit contrived, particularly given the longtime trend of terminal illness in YA. However, Mullaly executes the work with finesse, effectively balancing a believable young cast with high, real-world stakes.

An engrossing and sometimes-affecting teen story.