FICTION

When Kacey Left

by Dawn GREEN
228p. ebook available. Red Deer. Sept. 2015. pap. $12.95. ISBN 9780889955233.
COPY ISBN
Gr 8 Up—Kacey and Sara, aka Sticks and Stones, have been best friends since the third grade. They did everything together. But Kacey had a dark secret that she never shared with Sara. Now Kacey is gone and Sara is trying to figure out how to cope with the hole that has been left in her world. The "OC" (Obnoxious Councilor) that Sara's parents make her see thinks that writing letters to Kacey in a journal will help her work through her grief. She gives it a try and her emotional, confused story pours out. This book might get lost in the slew of recent titles about suicide. The writing feels forced, and while Sara is a sympathetic character to whom teens would relate, recent titles such as Gayle Forman's I Was Here (Viking) and Jasmine Warga's My Heart and Other Black Holes (HarperCollins, both 2015) might be more accessible.
VERDICT An additional purchase where Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why (Penguin, 2007) or John Green's Looking for Alaska (Dutton, 2005) are popular.
Reviewed by Claire Covington, Waynesboro Public Library, VA , Aug 01, 2015

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