The Year After You

January 13, 2020
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.

January 15, 2020
A grieving young woman finds help at a Swiss boarding school in this realistic novel. Seventeen-year-old Cara arrives at Hope Hall feeling as if she's been flung as far as possible from her previous home near San Francisco. Months earlier, a car accident, in which she was the driver, killed her best friend, G, and left Cara struggling with anxiety and agonizing in a deep well of self-blame. She's surprised and touched, if wary, that her new roommate, Ren, is patient and empathetic, and Cara is reluctantly drawn into her tight, complicated friendship with Fred and Hector, two other students. There are poignant and genuine moments in Cara's introspective first-person narration, and many readers will enjoy the idyllic setting in the mountains of Switzerland and the pan-European cast of characters: Cara lived in England before her parents' abrupt divorce led to her mother's marrying an American and fleeing the country, Hector is Spanish and English, Ren is French, and Fred is Swedish. They are all white; Ren is also gay. Cara's experience of her grief is realistically messy, but some readers will find its blending with a romance with Hector too pat and the slow build of her coming to terms with the actual events leading up to G's death too melodramatic. An engaging, at times moving, debut that doesn't always quite ring true. (Fiction. 12-18)

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February 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-Cara has survived a car accident that killed her best friend, G. Battling grief, depression, and internal and external scars, Cara is sent to boarding school in Switzerland by her mother, who thinks all she needs is a clean slate. Cara journeys through the snowy Alps to Hope Hall with very little hope. But a unique trio, Ren, Hector, and Fred, have other things in mind. Not only do they want to befriend Cara, but they want to know all her secrets. Cara shuts herself off, but the trio push back hard, and Cara reluctantly learns to open up to people who really care about her. She learns that with loyalty, love, and strong friendship, things get better, and she discovers the importance of forgiveness and acceptance. This book tackles difficult subjects like mental health, grief, depression, and survivor's guilt; some parts may be hard for anyone who has gone through something comparable. But de Pass is an excellent writer, handling these topics gracefully, and readers will easily connect with her characters. VERDICT A good choice for readers who enjoyed Stephanie Perkins's Anna and the French Kiss and Gayle Forman's If I Stay.-Caitlin Wilson, Meadowdale Library, North Chesterfield, VA

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