One Last Chance to Live

A grieving teen from the Bronx turns a class journal into a lifeline in this high-stakes page-turner from Stork (I Am Not Alone). “Half Mexican” 17-year-old Nico, who aspires to become a “great writer,” works at the fish market before school and sells weed for the X-Teca gang. His routines are thrown asunder by an eerie dream about his deceased unrequited love, Puerto Rican–cued Rosario, which seems to prophesize his death, as well as the deaths of his mother and 12-year-old half brother Javier. When his mother is diagnosed with lung cancer and Javier begins his X-Teca initiation, Nico’s dream starts to feel real. In response, he dedicates his AP English journal to investigating how college-bound Rosario—whose writerly ambitions inspired Nico’s future plans—died via a heroin overdose. By understanding Rosario’s life, will Nico be able to save his own? As he works through his unresolved grief and struggles to cope with worsening home dynamics, Nico’s daily writing assignments morph into a “novelesque... journal on steroids” that probes honesty, truth, and a writer’s way of life. Plainly yet piercingly voiced by a complex, flawed protagonist navigating tough choices, this immersive tale concludes with a brief—and powerful—message of hope. Ages 12–up. Agent: Faye Bender, Book Group. (Sept.)