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by: Nina de Pass
Amazon Recommended Age: YA
Lexile: 720L
Sensitive Topic(s): Grief, survivor's guilt, trauma, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
"San Francisco. New Year's Eve. A tragic accident after the party of the year. Cara survives. Her best friend, G, doesn't.
Nine months later, Cara is still struggling, consumed by guilt and grief. In the hopes of giving Cara a fresh start, her mother sends her to boarding school in Switzerland, a place where no one knows what happened--and where they never will, if Cara can help it.
But her new classmates Ren and Hector won't let her close herself off. They are determined to break down the walls she has so carefully built up. And maybe Cara wants them to . . . especially Hector, who seems to understand her like no one else does.
The problem is that the closer Cara gets to Hector, the more G slips away. If moving on means letting go of the past--and admitting what she did that night--Cara's not sure she can.
She's not sure she deserves a second chance." (book summary)
What I Thought:
It's just my opinion but... I think hands-down this is one of the best books (at least the top 5 of the 160-something I've read in 2021) I have read this year – and I don't give that position very easily. It's that good. The Year After You was written so well. The guilt that Cara experiences (survivor's guilt – why did she survive and not G? Why did G die and not her?), the build-up to the climax, how she's so shaken after the accident. At one time (pg. 276) Hector says, "Cara, 'bad' doesn't even get close. You had this look like you were either going to check out permanently or you were going to check back in again, but you hadn't quite decided." Also, the complexity of the characters – so well written, it was not surface-level emotions, they all had complicated back-stories and problems and they all needed to heal themselves, in a way. I also think the boarding school setting made their relationships so much more tight. After all, "friends are the family you choose for yourself". I was reading reviews on this book on Goodreads (an amazing site that you should definitely join) and this line (or let's say, paragraph) stuck out to me. (see the full review by Cora Tea Party Princess) "Hope Hall is like a motley collection of broken people finding themselves and learning to love themselves. It's a place full of hope and a little expectation, with support networks and an incredible view." If you read the book and come back to this review and read this quote, it'll make so much more sense to you. Read The Year After You if you are able to handle the topics being written about.
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