First published 2014
Emily Bird has always followed the rules. She maintains flawless appearances, dates the right boy, and never questions her parents' secretive scientific careers. At a party for Washington DC's political elite, she meets Roosevelt David, a homeland security agent. Days later, Bird awakens in a hospital bed with no memory of how the evening ended. The world outside has changed. A lethal flu virus tears across the country, bringing quarantines and martial law. Roosevelt believes Bird possesses crucial information about the outbreak, something connected to her parents' classified research. With nowhere else to turn, Bird relies on Coffee, a brilliant outsider who sells drugs to their prep school classmates and sees conspiracies everywhere. Coffee trusts her when no one else will. Together, they uncover the truth about that missing night. Bird discovers she knows far more than her conscious mind remembers, and her buried knowledge could expose a government conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of power.
Genres: science-fiction, mystery, contemporary, thriller
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Washington DC
Period: contemporary
344 pages · Hardcover · Arthur A. Levine Books
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, medical-trauma