All We Know of Heaven (by Jacquelyn Mitchard)

On their way to a cheerleading competition, 16-year-old best friends Bridget and Maureen are hit in a collision. The driver dies; the passenger, who was thrown 30 feet from the vehicle, survives, but is in a coma. With switching narrative perspectives, the reader enters the girl's head (she wonders if "maybe being dead took getting used to, like cold water or the dentist"), along with her parents, boyfriend, and friends. When she wakes up with brain damage, the girl can barely talk, but she tries to communicate one thing: I'm not who you think I am.

Readers expecting an after-school special melodrama or a maudlin cautionary tale will instead find a layered, warts-and-all story of a car crash's impact not only on its two victims but their families, friends, and whole community. Named an honorary prom princess, even the survivor knows it's just "because this thing happened to me." And with a modern, sick twist, someone posts a picture of her "smiling shyly in her tiara, on top of a gross topless photo on MyPlace."

Mitchard's imagery (purgatory is "sort of heaven's mudroom") and the omniscient narration gives intriguing insight into how events and people are perceived, but it also distances the reader instead of allowing them to get lost in the story. The momentum slows during the recovery, with an on-again, off-again romance woven in as the teens try to deal with the crash's repercussions. But the slower moments help readers develop a connection with sweet Maureen, who kisses a boy because she likes it and says whatever pops in her head because "in the brain, out the mouth."

Author: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: April 29, 2008
Number of pages: 312
Hardcover price: $16.99