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Synopsis
Destiny Faraday makes a point of keeping a distance from her classmates at Hedgebrook Academy. Routine and predictability help her stick to her number-one rule: Don’t get attached. But one day, with the crumpling of a calendar page and an odd encounter with a mysterious stranger, routine and predictability are turned on end.
Unexpectedly finding a car at their disposal, Destiny and three of her classmates embark on an unauthorized road trip, searching for one fair day a day where the good guy wins and everything adds up to something just and right.
The Miles Between explores the absurdities of life, friendship, and fate and also the moments of grace and wonder. You never know where a road trip might take you.
Publishers Weekly
Four teens escape boarding school for a day when 17-year-old Destiny Faraday happens upon a pink convertible with the key in the ignition (conveniently, the glove box also contains a bundle of cash). These truants aren't out for a joyride: their quest is for a “fair day” in which everybody gets something they dearly deserve. Rather improbably, this is what happens. The coincidences involved in making this so push Pearson's (The Adoration of Jenna Fox) story in genre-bending ways. Is this a fantasy? A meditation on chance and coincidence? (“Can there be such a thing as a pattern to coincidence?” muses Destiny.) What keeps the pages turning while one's disbelief is in constant suspension is the mystery element—there's a dark secret lurking in Destiny's backstory that dribbles out as the day goes on. The big reveal is well orchestrated, but the way the story wraps up treats casually what readers will have learned is serious mental illness. Those willing to let that go will be carried along by the story's supernatural momentum and its affirming message about the redemptive power of friendship. Ages 14–up. (Sept.)