“For the most part, you don’t hold the people you love in your heart because they rescued you from drowning or pulled you from a burning house.  Mostly you hold them in your heart because they save you, in a million quiet and perfect ways, from being alone.” (p.277) The loss of a friend is a tragedy that changes your life.  Now imagine losing your three best friends instantly because of a text message that you sent.  That is the nightmare that Carver finds himself struggling with.  After attending the funerals of Mars, Eli, and Blake, Carver is facing panic attacks, possible prosecution, and tremendous guilt.  Who can he turn to now that the three people who knew him best are gone?  Can he help himself and those left behind to find closure through a series of Goodbye Days designed around the question “What if you could spend one last day with someone you lost?” Funny and poignant, Goodbye Days will leave readers feeling the weight of the tragedy on the survivors.

For me, Jeff Zenter’s books are filled with delicious quotes, quotes I want to write down, share, consider, and live with and his newest novel In the Wild Light doesn’t disappoint.  As Cash notes “I’ve always loved when the light finds the broken spots in the world and makes them beautiful.” (p.8)  Cash knows broken spots well, losing his mother to opioid addiction, but his challenges have also brought him the light of his best friend, Delaney and the stable, loving home of Papaw and Mamaw. When brilliant Delaney makes a world-changing scientific discovery, she is offered a scholarship at an elite New England prep school, an opportunity that also includes a place for Cash, if he is brave enough to accept it.  Cash’s journey to find his place in the world will take him far beyond the tiny Tennessee town of Sawyer, but his brave and honest look at the world will ease his journey.

Best friends Delia and Josie just get each other and hosting their (recently syndicated!) public access horror show, Midnite Matinee, has become an important part of life for them both.  As they graduate and try to figure out their dreams, it feels like everything is changing, ending, and beginning, all at the same time.  Josie dreams of the fame that comes with a career in television.  Delia dreams of finding the father who abandoned her, the real reason that she started the show in the first place.  Both girls desperately want to hold on to the show that they have built together, the friendship that they share, but also want the other to be happy.  A trip to Orlando offers an opportunity to achieve their dreams, but with so much riding on the success of one meeting the pressure might prove too much for the pair.  This book made me laugh out loud and tear up over and over again.  The loyalty and friendship of Delia and Josie will offer readers a "bright, warm fire...in (the) coldest, darkest midnights" (363-364) by highlighting the understanding and love of friends that truly want the best for each other.  

How do you create an identity for yourself when others have already created one for you based on the actions of your family? Dill Early’s father is currently sitting in prison for possession of indecent content of underage children, while also being the head of a fanatic Christian church where they would regularly pass around venomous snakes to prove their faith. Told in alternating points of view, Dill and his best friends Lydia and Travis, are navigating their senior year while also dealing with Dill’s family situation, bullies, unspoken feelings, and the every-day trials of high school in the rural Tennessee Bible Belt. Changes are inevitable, but will Dill be able to overcome his father’s sins in order to pave a future for himself? Will he be able to overcome the tremendous, sudden loss of someone close to him? You will be unable to put down this book so you don’t miss what happens next to these interesting and lovable characters.  If you love rooting for the underdog, this book is for you!