One cold fall day, high school junior Liz Emerson steers her car into a tree. This haunting and heartbreaking story is told by a surprising and unexpected narrator and unfolds in nonlinear flashbacks even as Lizs friends, foes, and family gather at the hospital and Liz clings to life. This riveting debut will appeal to fans of Before I Fall, by Lauren Oliver, and 13 Reasons Why, by Jay Asher.On the day Liz Emerson tries to die, they had reviewed Newtons laws of motion in physics class. Then, after school, she put them into practice by running her Mercedes off the road. Why did Liz Emerson decide that the world would be better off without her? Why did she give up? The nonlinear novel pieces together the short and devastating life of Meridian Highs most popular junior girl. Mass, acceleration, momentum, forceLiz didnt understand it in physics, and even as her Mercedes hurtles toward the tree, she doesnt understand it now. How do we impact one another? How do our actions reverberate? What does it mean to be a friend? To love someone? To be a daughter? Or a mother? Is life truly more than cause and effect? Amy Zhangs haunting and universal story will appeal to fans of Lauren Oliver, Gayle Forman, and Jay Asher.

Inertia, force, mass,
gravity, velocity,
acceleration . . .
cause and effect.

Liz Emerson doesn't
understand any of it.

But I do.

I understand how we fall.
Where we fall. Why we fall.

I understand her sadness
and loneliness and silence,
her shattered heart.

It doesn't have to be
this way, does it?

It wasn't always
this way, was it?

Stay alive,
Liz Emerson,
stay alive.