ANOTHER FIRST CHANCE

A decision borne of frustration lands a grief-stricken young man in a questionable research trial about friendship.

Dylan, River’s best friend (and maybe more), died while texting and driving, leading their town to put up an awful billboard that seemingly reduces his death to a pithy slogan. After River’s grief and frustration finally boil over into vandalism, he discovers that someone knows he spray-painted the mustache on Dylan’s face. Blackmailed into joining the Affinity Trials, a study about friendship, River finds himself in close quarters with Mavis, a childhood friend who despises him and was also Dylan’s girlfriend. Over the course of the weeklong study, River starts new friendships and mends others, all while digging for the truth behind the trial’s technology and attempting to unravel his possible romantic feelings for Dylan. As the trials draw to a close, even reality itself comes into question for the participants, and River faces a difficult choice. Couch juxtaposes realistic, emotionally affecting scenes that expose the events of the night Dylan died with a week’s worth of present-day speculative-fiction intrigue, swiftly pulling the narrative along beside heartbreakingly accurate depictions of grief. The three main characters, who have layers of hurt feelings between them, are captivating and sympathetic. Readers who think they know what’s coming will be surprised. River is white; Mavis and Dylan are loosely described and read white.

An emotionally intense exploration of grief combined with creative speculation about the nature of friendship.