Fix

After extensive surgery, “pale white” Boston-based scoliosis patient Eve Abbott, 16, is “fixed.” With the help of bars, screws, and many staples, the “tilty twist” of her spine is gone. Still experiencing excruciating physical pain and rejected by her white best friend Lidia Banks, “born with a single hand,” whose trust she betrayed, Eve turns to self-medication for escape. Her Roxinol pills take her to a surreal place where the telescope in her room offers help—contingent on a piece of Minnesota disappearing each time. Eve knows she is becoming reliant on the medication but isn’t sure how else to grapple with the pain of her past and present. Mann (What Every Girl Should Know) employs a mixture of verse and first-person narrative. Eve’s physical and emotional experiences resonate, and the supporting cast—Eve’s professor mother, too busy to meet her daughter’s needs; strong, confident Lidia, who might never forgive Eve; and Thomas Aquinas, the teen’s assigned partner for a high-school-wide “buddy system” program, the only one who truly sees Eve and offers “exasperating compassion”—are vividly drawn in this hopeful contemporary novel. Ages 14–up. Agent: Kerry Sparks Levine, Greenberg Literary. (May)