by Renée Watson
First published 2025
Sage planned to spend her thirteenth birthday watching movies with her best friend, eating treats, and staying awake until sunrise. Instead, her best friend dies that day. Now Sage faces life without the person who knew her secrets and shared her dreams. She joins a counseling group where other girls talk about their own losses. Each girl grieves differently. Sage discovers that healing does not follow rules or timelines. She feels sadness and loneliness. She experiences anxiety and guilt alongside pain and love. As Sage works through her grief, unexpected good things begin to appear in her world. She starts to understand that she can hold all these feelings at once. Watson tells this story through verse and short scenes that capture how grief reshapes a young life.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, grief, contemporary, adolescence, young-adult
Vibes: emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, grief
208 pages · Hardcover · Bloomsbury Children's Books
Content warnings: death