All the Ways the World Can End

Eleanor “Lenny” Rosenthal-Hermann has been making a list of ways the world could end since she was nine years old, from megatsunamis to nuclear proliferation. She’s now 16, and the Earth is still intact, but her father’s health is declining at an alarming rate. In a heart-wrenching novel, Sher insightfully reveals Lenny’s panic, OCD behaviors, and grief as she watches her father die of cancer. With his regular doctor away, Lenny gets a glimmer of hope from the new resident in charge, who believes her father may be eligible for an experimental treatment. Feeling abandoned by her mother, a state supreme court justice who was “always doing ten things at once,” and by her best friend Julian, who is planning to graduate early and leave for college, Lenny puts too much faith in the young doctor, developing a crush on him that careens out of control. Expressing the same type of magical thinking explored in Sher’s memoir, Amen, Amen, Amen, the novel delineates destructive and healthy responses to loss, and shows that beauty and continuity can exist amid tragedy. Ages 12–up. Agent: Mollie Glick, Creative Artists Agency. (July)