Year of Mistaken Discoveries

Avery and her childhood friend Nora used to call themselves Sisters of Choice (both girls were adopted), and they dreamed of finding their birth mothers someday. Since entering high school, Avery and Nora have grown apart, but after Nora overdoses on pills, Avery decides to restart her search for her biological mother in tribute to their friendship. “This was something she couldn’t do, so I need to finish it,” she tells Brody, another grieving friend of Nora’s, who helps Avery turn her investigation into a joint senior year project, much to her adoptive parents’ dismay. Cook (The Almost Truth) combines friendship drama, boy troubles, romance, family conflict, and college application stress with a protagonist trying to understand who she really is in the wake of tragedy. Although the resolutions of Avery’s conflicts with her parents, friends, and the boys in her life are overly neat, her discoveries are grounded and realistic, and it’s easy to identify with her efforts to understand her roots and begin the next chapter in her life. Ages 14–up. Agent: Rachel Coyne, FinePrint Literary Management. (Feb.)