Aspen

Gr 9 Up—Aspen Yellow-Sunrise Taylor sees dead people, or more precisely, the one dead person who haunts her every waking moment, which is pretty much 24/7 since she can no longer sleep without reliving a terrible car accident. One month before the start of senior year, a head-on collision kills the beautiful and popular Katelyn, and leaves Aspen with a permanent facial scar and a broken leg. The police investigation determines that Katelyn was the driver at fault, but Aspen suspects that she may have been to blame and is actively suppressing the memory to avoid facing that possibility. Once school starts, however, the teen discovers that her senior year will be defined by the accident. Formerly a self-proclaimed outcast, she is now sought out by Katelyn's best friend and other classmates who had previously seemed barely aware of her existence. Her newfound and discomforting notoriety even get her elected as homecoming queen. Further complicating her life are her role-reversed relationship with her pot-smoking mother and the growing feelings she shares with Katelyn's former boyfriend. Aspen's determined avoidance of subconscious guilt, in the form of Katelyn's finger-pointing ghost, put her on a roller-coaster ride toward the brink of physical and emotional collapse. Crane provides a generous helping of dry, often dark, humor to relieve the mounting tension. Colored by its backdrop of present-day Boulder, Colorado with its legal marijuana and retro hippie culture, this is a tight, impeccably paced story with well-defined characters and intriguing relationships that will resonate with older teens.—Cary Frostick, formerly at Mary Riley Styles Public Library, Falls Church, VA