Everything I Thought I Knew

“Sometimes things—glass, eggs, hearts—just break”: that’s what cross-country runner Chloe realizes when she collapses in her senior year and, diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, is told that she’ll die if she doesn’t get a new heart. Months after a transplant, she feels better physically but not mentally. Once a straight-A, type-A student, she’s now stuck in summer school, has memories she doesn’t recognize, and keeps dreaming about a terrible motorcycle crash. The only thing that feels right is her new hobby: surfing. She begins exploring transplant-related memory transfer and whether memory can live in a body’s cells. Is that why she now knows how to ride a motorcycle and to get to places she’s never been? Why she appreciates her summer school classmate, Jane, whom old Chloe would have disdained? As Chloe and Jane start sleuthing, Chloe and her surfing instructor, Kai, get closer, but is she risking her heart, emotionally and physically? Chloe and Kai’s well-drawn ocean adventures are exciting, as is their burgeoning romance, and, though some readers may find the final plot twist hard to swallow, debut author Takaoka weaves a compelling tale of following one’s instincts and for connections that outlast physical life. Ages 14–up. [em]Agent: Nicki Richesin, Wendy Sherman Assoc. (Oct.) [/em]