by David Arnold
First published 2016
Victor Benucci sits across from Hackensack police detectives with a story they need to hear. It starts when his father died. It ends with the murder of his girlfriend Madeline Falco's uncle. But Vic and Mad must tell everything that happened between those two deaths. Their tale involves a secret mission to spread ashes throughout New Jersey, winter visits to the Palisades, an abandoned submarine, and songs about flowers. There are sunsets and ice cream, orchards and graveyards. Mad escaped a war-torn country and collects stories from people. Vic learns to understand someone who cannot speak. Along the way, he falls in love with a painting, with a song, and with Mad herself. The police want answers about a murder, but Vic and Mad know their real story lies in all the small moments that brought them together.
Genres: literary-fiction, family-life, coming-of-age, contemporary
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Hackensack, New Jersey, Palisades
Period: contemporary
331 pages · Hardcover · Viking Childrens Books
Content warnings: mental-illness