Lost for Words

My New Year's resolution: I'm moving on from everything that's happened. I'm not going to talk about it, think about it, let the memory pounce upon me like a waiting tiger, nothing.

All Sophie wants to do is forget. But it's not easy now that everything's changed. The house feels too big, school drags on for too long, lights are too bright, the room spins, and her hands get sweaty for no reason. And she can't remember why she was ever best friends with Abigail, who is obsessed with parties and boys. Only the new girl, Rosa-Leigh, with her prose poems and utter confidence, might understand. But talking to her seems impossible.

Lost in memories of the life she once had, Sophie retreats into herself. But there's only so long she can keep everything bottled up inside before she explodes. Maybe by confronting the tragedy of her past she'll figure out how to fix her future.

My New Year's resolution: I'm moving on from everything that's happened. I'm not going to talk about it, think about it, let the memory pounce upon me like a waiting tiger, nothing.

All Sophie wants to do is forget. But it's not easy now that everything's changed. The house feels too big, school drags on for too long, lights are too bright, the room spins, and her hands get sweaty for no reason. And she can't remember why she was ever best friends with Abigail, who is obsessed with parties and boys. Only the new girl, Rosa-Leigh, with her prose poems and utter confidence, might understand. But talking to her seems impossible.

Lost in memories of the life she once had, Sophie retreats into herself. But there's only so long she can keep everything bottled up inside before she explodes. Maybe by confronting the tragedy of her past she'll figure out how to fix her future.

Publishers Weekly

After a traumatic summer during which her sister, Emily, was killed, shell-shocked 16-year-old Sophie returns to her London high school feeling increasingly removed from her best friend Abigail (who is hanging out with a more popular crowd and becoming alarmingly thin) and her mother (who has been dealing with Emily's death by isolating herself and collecting lost objects). Reflective Sophie reluctantly takes her therapist's advice and begins to write diary entries and poems, which make up the novel. She bonds with a new friend, Rosa-Leigh, and tries to function normally, but her anger, fear, and sadness resurface throughout. Adult author Kuipers's (Life on the Refrigerator Door) first YA novel delicately details the complexities of the grief process. Through Sophie's perceptive narration, readers get well-developed images of the many characters ("The older one had this twinkle in his expression like he knew stuff," is Sophie's impression of one of Rosa-Leigh's brothers), yet Sophie is a relative cipher. The circumstances of Emily's death--left a mystery for most of the book--have taken a toll on her that goes well beyond the loss of her sister. Ages 12–up. (May)

Alice Kuipers is the author of Life on the Refrigerator Door, which was published in twenty-eight countries and won several awards. She was born and raised in London, England, and now lives in Saskatoon, Canada.