by Garret Weyr
First published 2001
Sophie Merdinger watches her memories of Erhart slip away. Her little brother died of leukemia two years ago, and now she can barely remember his voice or his laugh. She carries anger toward her father, who chose to have an affair while Erhart was fighting for his life. The boys who used to be just friends now want to date her, and she doesn't know how to handle their attention or her own feelings. Then Francis arrives. He has a teardrop tattoo on his face and a mother who died. He asks questions that feel almost intrusive, but he understands loss in ways her other friends cannot. Francis wants to be her friend, nothing more complicated than that. He shows Sophie new ways to hold onto memories of the people they have lost. Through their friendship, Sophie begins to learn that grief doesn't have to mean forgetting, and that healing doesn't require forgiving everything.
Genres: grief, coming-of-age, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, grief
168 pages · Hardcover · Thorndike Press
Content warnings: death, mental-illness