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Mirror in the Sky by Aditi Khorana
For Tara Krishnan, navigating Brierly, the academically rigorous prep school she attends on scholarship, feels overwhelming and impossible. Her junior year begins in the wake of a startling discovery: A message from an alternate Earth, light years away, is intercepted by NASA. This means that on another planet, there is another version of Tara, a Tara who could be living better, burning brighter, because of tiny differences in her choices. The world lights up with the knowledge of Terra Nova, the mirror planet, and Tara’s life on Earth begins to change. At first, small shifts happen, like attention from Nick Osterman, the most popular guy at Brierly, and her mother playing hooky from work to watch the news all day. But eventually those small shifts swell, the discovery of Terra Nova like a black hole, bending all the light around it. As a new era of scientific history dawns and Tara's life at Brierly continues its orbit, only one thing is clear: Nothing on Earth--or for Tara--will ever be the same again.
Review from School Library Journal:
As Tara prepares to start her junior year without her best friend, who will be studying abroad, a new, Earth-like planet is discovered, throwing the world into a mild chaos. Besides the temporary loss of her best friend, Tara must also deal with the departure of her mother, who has left for California to join a cultish organization that hopes to make contact with inhabitants of the new planet. After attention from a popular boy gets Tara invited to a big party, she spends her year infiltrating the popular circle of her posh Connecticut prep school. Khorana focuses on how social groups take shape and thrive as she compares the friendship circles that develop in high school with the various groups forming because of the potential existence of life beyond Earth. Readers won't necessarily learn hard science, but they will be encouraged to ponder the vast expansiveness of the universe. The writing style is eloquent, and the characters are well developed, particularly Tara, who is struggling as the only Indian girl in an all-white school.
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