A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend

Starred review from July 1, 2010
Gr 8 Up—-fter the death of her best friend, Cass finds herself questioning her own identity, sexuality, and place in the high school hierarchy. Before she died, Julia had been working on a top-secret project: a musical called "Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad" Now that she is gone, her boyfriend, Oliver, and her other theater friends are determined to stage the show as a tribute. Cass is committed to helping backstage, building spectacular traps and weapons—until Heather, Cass's middle school nemesis, is cast as the female lead. Heather was the first person to tease Cass about her close friendship with Julia and suggest that Cass wanted it to be something more, and since Julia's death, Oliver has been making barbed remarks, as well. In the face of these complications, Cass sets off on a quest of her own: biking cross-country to take Julia's ashes to California. She tells herself that she is not running away from Oliver's hostility, Julia's friends' cold shoulders, or Heather's disconcerting new niceness. The journey helps her discover things she never knew about herself, and when she finds herself at rock bottom, she learns that Julia's friends are her friends, too. This funny, touching, and sweet coming-of-age story explores serious themes in a fresh way. Cass's tentative questioning of her own sexuality and her hesitant approach toward her first serious romantic relationship will delight readers who struggle with similar issues, as well as those who simply enjoy a well-crafted story.—"Misti Tidman, Boyd County Public Library, Ashland, KY"

Copyright 2010 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2010
Grades 9-12 Sixteen-year-old Cass Meyers best friend, Julia, is killed in a car accident, leaving behind a special project: an original musical entitled Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad. Cass grief is complicated by her never-stated and unrequited crush on Julia, and the fact that popular and pretty Heather Graham, who teased Cass mercilessly in middle school by calling her dyke, gets the lead in Julias play. Horner cleverly separates the action into two parallel plotsone occurring during Cass summer solo bike ride from Illinois to California with Julias ashes, the other during senior year and the push to stage the musical. Cass is a fascinating and believable character, a Quaker and committed cyclist incredibly competent in matters mechanical and awkwardly inept in matters of the heart. When Heather comes out to Cass and initiates a relationship, it rings true to have the most homophobic person be gay herself. As in John Greens Looking for Alaska (2005) and Nina LaCours Hold Still (2009), Horner sensitively explores the hole left behind when we lose someone, and the slow emergence from grief that follows.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2010
Seventeen-year-old Cass is devastated by her best friend Julia's death. Cass takes off on a cross-country bike trip; later, back home, she struggles to mend fences with her nemesis (and love interest) Heather, star of a play Julia had been writing. Cass is both unique and very relatable. Horner manages to treat the grieving process with respect while maintaining a positive tone.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

July 1, 2010
Devastated by her best friend Julia's death, seventeen-year-old Cass worries that her remaining friends will desert her: they are all flamboyant, emotive theater people, while Cass is a reserved math nerd. The friends' decision to produce a musical theater script Julia had been writing gives Cass purpose and direction...until Heather, her middle-school nemesis, is cast in the lead role. So Cass takes off on a cross-country bike trip, trying to honor another of Julia's dreams; later, back home, she struggles to mend fences with Heather so the show can go on. The novel shuttles back and forth between two timelines: that of Cass's initial grieving process and cross-country journey of self-discovery; and that of her later reconciliation with her friends and wary romance with Heather. Cass is both unique (her Quaker upbringing and practical self-sufficiency make the bike trip credible) and very relatable (her disconnection from her friends and in-progress identity will feel familiar to many readers, and not just the gay ones). Horner manages to treat the grieving process with respect while maintaining a positive tone, a balance that allows the triumphant conclusions of both story lines to feel unforced. With its John Green-esque set pieces, mad road trips, fortuitous stranger encounters, thoroughly teased-out friendship drama, and optimistic romanticism-not to mention a fresh treatment of a lesbian heroine-this entertaining debut has something for everyone.

(Copyright 2010 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)