The Year After You

On her way home from a New Year’s Eve party, British-American Cara’s life is shattered when the vehicle she is driving is hit by a truck and her best friend, Georgina, is killed. Wracked with guilt and unable to function, Cara reluctantly follows her mother’s suggestion to leave California and spend her senior year abroad. Cara knows that she will never meet her mother’s expectation that she return to her old self; if she goes somewhere new, maybe she can hide her past. With compassion and sensitivity, first-time author De Pass traces the psychological changes Cara undergoes as she attends an isolated boarding school in Switzerland and becomes close with three students from different countries, all of whom have had to deal with traumas of their own. With their help, Cara finds the courage to confront the one horrible truth about the accident she has never told anyone. Enhanced by its evocative setting, a warm refuge surrounded by mountains, De Pass’s novel clearly depicts who Cara was previously, who she is now, and how the revelation of her secret affects her relationship with others. Her multiple layers of emotional pain and fear will affect readers deeply. Ages 12–up. [em](Mar.) [/em]