Winter Longing

A frigid Alaskan backdrop effectively underscores the numbness high school senior Winter Craig feels after her brand-new boyfriend, Spencer, dies in a plane crash. Reeling in sorrow, with the memories of their first (and last) kiss still fresh in her mind, Winter doesn't know how she can go back to living a normal life. When her neighbor Jesse starts showing signs of affection, she feels torn, as though her attraction to another boy is a form of betrayal. Beginning some chapters with Winter's romantic flashbacks of growing up with Spencer and others with literary quotes about love, Mills (Heartbreak River) creates a wrenching tale of love lost and found again. It's an innately melodramatic premise, and Winter's narration amplifies that aspect of this weepie, not always credibly ("I emerged from my room like a prisoner thrust upon a world I no longer remembered how to live in. Like Morgan Freeman's character in The Shawshank Redemption"). Nevertheless, Winter's arduous journey through grief will touch those who have shared her longing to recapture and rewrite the past. Ages 12–up. (Aug.)