My Best Everything

Seventeen-year-old Lulu Mendez cannot wait to leave sleepy Dale, Va., for the University of San Diego. Although she loves her job as a “junkyard girl” at Sal’s Salvage and will miss her best friend Roni—who is intent on marrying her boyfriend, Bucky, and starting a family—Lulu believes she has never belonged in her agoraphobic mother’s hometown. When Lulu’s father’s business dealings fall through, her college dreams are threatened until a chance (and potentially lucrative) meeting with Mason Malone, an older friend of Bucky’s who is struggling with sobriety, family estrangement, and his girlfriend’s death. In epistolary fashion, Tomp (Red, White, and Blue Good-bye) chronicles the fateful summer between high school and college when Lulu, Roni, Bucky, and Mason make moonshine together in a moneymaking scheme. When summer ends with Lulu’s college goal in sight, Mason moves dangerously close to his old life while the others discover that their futures are in jeopardy. Surprises are few, but Tomp’s descriptions of small-town Virginia life, a blend of haunting beauty and impoverishment, are forceful. Ages 15–up. Agent: Catherine Drayton, InkWell Management. (Mar.)