Fadeaway

As a rising ninth grader, Sam expects to dominate the high school basketball courts with her best friend, Reagan. Then Reagan suffers fatal heart failure, sending Sam into a major depression. Stokes’s uneven debut features a sympathetic protagonist and a likeable cast of supporting characters, including Sam’s supportive brothers; her health-food nut mother and donut-sneaking father; her potential romantic interest and golf buddy, “Goth Boy” Kevin; and Reagan, who reappears only to Sam and engages her in affectionate, “morbid and ghoulish” banter. Sam’s grief, her search to discover her identity after being part of an inseparable twosome, and her family and friends’ frustration at not being able to help ring true. While some of the story’s conflicts, such as an ongoing power struggle with her algebra teacher, feel forced, this novel offers an affecting portrait of a loving friendship that outlasts death. Ages 10–14. Agent: Melissa Nasson, Rubin Pfeffer Content. (June)