Just Like That explores the story of a teenage girl named Hanna. After breaking up with her boyfriend, she thinks she'll have a quiet moment to herself, sitting near the frozen-over lake late at night. She sees a slightly older couple, who urge her to come with them to be safe. She stays put. They warn her about the thin ice and depart. Shortly thereafter, a couple about her age drives by on an ATV, loud and giddy, teasing her. Lonely and cranky, she doesn't pass on the warning about the ice.

The next morning, she hears about their deaths on the news. She realizes she was the last person to see them alive - and that she might have been able to prevent their deaths. But she doesn't tell anyone that she was there, not even her mother, not even her two best friends.

And things start to change.

Soon, Hanna meets Will, someone else tied in with that night's events. She gets involved with him rather quickly. Just as quickly, she finds herself drawn into a family with hearts on their sleeves and skeletons in their closet.

Just Like That is highly realistic dramatic fiction in the vein of Sarah Dessen or Deb Caletti. It is a must-read book for anyone looking for a poignant story with true-to-life, flawed characters.

I included Just Like That on my Best Books of 2005 list.

Qualey has written many other books. I also read and enjoyed Too Quiet a Storm, which is about an eighteen-year-old girl's family, friends, and political activism during the Vietnam War.

Read my other posts about Wicked Cool Overlooked Books.

Learn more about WCOB at Chasing Ray.

How could I use anything other than my Alice/dreaming icon when considering Tennyson by Lesley M.M. Blume? The author and I have been discussing literature, photographs, and other forms of art, and we now invite you to listen in on our conversation.

Tennyson was inspired by poetry and photography. Tell me more.

Tennyson was inspired initially by two books of photography: Sally Mann's 'Immediate Family' and Clarence John Laughlin's 'Ghosts Along the Mississippi.'

( Read more... )

Thanks to Lesley for letting me visit Aigredoux.

To learn more about Tennyson, visit the website.

For my two cents' worth - and to find out who I mentally cast as Emery - read my book review of Tennyson.

Read my 2006 interview with the author.