Sync

Hopkins (People Kill People) employs her signature grit and compelling verse to deliver a wrenching interpretation of the foster care system. Seventeen-year-old twins Lake and Storm endured a childhood of abuse and neglect before being admitted into the California foster care system and separated from each other. Following a brief period in juvenile detention, Storm finds stability with his single foster parent as well as his girlfriend Jailyn, “who lifts the storm/ clouds and lets her light in.” Meanwhile, Lake is staying with a deeply religious foster family and her fellow foster Parker, with whom she begins a secret romantic relationship. After reuniting for an afternoon, Lake and Storm are ripped apart again when their worlds simultaneously implode—Storm injures a classmate who assaulted Jailyn, and Lake’s foster parents discover that she’s queer. Told through letters and mental musings to each other, this haunting read weaves together instances of trauma, violence, homelessness, incarceration, and sexual assault that the siblings experience during their childhood and adolescence as they try to make their way back to each other; glimmers of kindness and love sometimes provide bright spots to their bleak reality. Characters read as white. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)