by Jeff Zentner
First published 2016
Dill Early lives in a small Tennessee town where everybody knows what his father did. The man is in prison, and the shame follows Dill to school, to work, and back to the cramped house he shares with his exhausted mother. Two friendships keep him upright: Travis, a big gentle kid who loses himself in a fantasy novel series to survive his violent home life, and Lydia, who runs a fashion blog and has a one-way ticket out to New York written all over her. Dill loves them both and dreads the day Lydia leaves. He wants only to finish his senior year without falling apart. But his father's legacy is more than embarrassment. There is something in the family's religious extremism that reaches toward Dill, a pull toward despair he cannot name or fully resist. He has to decide whether that inheritance defines him or whether he can cut it loose before it does real damage. The answer costs all three friends something they cannot get back.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, young-adult, 21st-century
Vibes: character-driven, emotional, intimate, introspective, melancholic, thought-provoking
Tropes: coming-of-age, found-family, friendship-tested, generational-trauma
Setting: Tennessee
Period: Senior year of high school
369 pages · Paperback · ANDERSEN PRESS
Content warnings: abuse, depression, mental-illness, suicidal-ideation