AFTER

Chick-lit author Harmel incorporates the comparatively serious topic of grief into this predictable yet heartfelt story. Ten months after the car accident that claimed her father’s life, high-school junior Lacey has been sublimating her guilt and suppressing her tears by taking care of everyone—her absent mother, withdrawn little brother and reckless older brother—but herself. Just when she thinks no one else could possibly understand her, she meets the hot new transfer student, Sam, who has a family tragedy of his own, and learns that a fellow classmate has recently loss her mother, too. Tired of being seen as “that-poor-girl-whose-dad-is-dead,” Lacey forms a support group, based on a real Atlanta-based organization, Kate’s Club, for other students who have lost their parents and want to reclaim their identities and the fun in life. While the dialogue and explanations of Lacey’s group can be stilted and didactic, the various reactions to grief depicted are real and can serve as a guide for other teen survivors and the adults in their lives. (Fiction. YA)