Audio. The Stepping off place by Cameron Kelly Rosenblum

Narrated by: Hope Newhouse

Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins

Release date: 07-28-20

Language: English

Publisher: Quill Tree Books

YA fiction

To review

I have said it before, but when it comes to YA fiction, I prefer the ones that deal with real issues. Those have depth, and meaning.

And in this one we have Reid, a bit of a loner, who feels she is the beta to her bestie. And she is happy like that. But her best friend Hattie goes away every summer for 3 months, and this summer she does not come back.

It was real. Reid sank into a black cloud when she found out Hattie was dead. She went through all emotions, grief, denial, anger. There are flashbacks to their last year, and previous years. The fun they had, and slowly we see more into Hattie, and what happened. Why would she kill herself?

I liked it. It was never actually sad, it was  a search, and a celebration of a friendship. And how grief can shatter someone.

I liked the narrator. She put this insecurity into her Reid voice that fitted so well.

A really good audio to listen to

It's the summer before senior year. Reid is in the thick of Scofield High's in-crowd thanks to her best friend, Hattie, who has been her social oxygen since middle school.

But summer is when Hattie goes to her family's Maine island home. Instead of sitting inside for eight weeks, waiting for her to return, Reid and their friend, Sam, enter into a pact - to live it up, one party at a time. But days before Hattie is due home, Reid finds out the shocking news that Hattie has died by suicide. Driven by a desperate need to understand what went wrong, Reid searches for answers. In doing so, she uncovers painful secrets about the person she thought she knew better than herself. And the truth will force Reid to reexamine everything.