Cover Image

What you left behind

by Verdi, Jessica,

Format: Print Book 2015
Availability: Available at 4 Libraries 4 of 4 copies

Available (4)
Location Collection Call #
Andrew Carnegie Free Library Young Adult YA FIC VERDI
Location  Andrew Carnegie Free Library
 
Collection  Young Adult
 
Call Number  YA FIC VERDI
 
 
Green Tree Public Library Young Adult Fiction YA VER
Location  Green Tree Public Library
 
Collection  Young Adult Fiction
 
Call Number  YA VER
 
 
Moon Township Public Library Young Adult Fiction YA F VERDI Jessica
Location  Moon Township Public Library
 
Collection  Young Adult Fiction
 
Call Number  YA F VERDI Jessica
 
 
Northland Public Library Teen Paperbacks P/YA VER
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Teen Paperbacks
 
Call Number  P/YA VER
 
 

Summary

Jessica Verdi, the author of My Life After Nowand The Summer I Wasn't Me, returns with a heartbreaking and poignant novel of grief and guilt that reads like Nicholas Sparks for teens.

It's all Ryden's fault. If he hadn't gotten Meg pregnant, she would have never stopped her chemo treatments and would still be alive. Instead he's failing fatherhood one dirty diaper at a time. And it's not like he's had time to grieve while struggling to care for their infant daughter, start his senior year, and earn the soccer scholarship he needs to go to college.

The one person who makes Ryden feel like his old self is Joni. She's fun and energetic-and doesn't know he has a baby. But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes to keep his two worlds separate. Finding one of Meg's journals only stirs up old emotions. Ryden's convinced Meg left other notebooks for him to find, some message to help his new life make sense. But how is he going to have a future if he can't let go of the past?

"Ryden's story is a moving illustration of how sometimes you have to let go of the life you planned to embrace the life you've been given. A strong, character-driven story that teen readers will love."-Carrie Arcos, National Book Award Finalist for Out of Reach

Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "Ryden is trying to hold down a part-time job and a place on the varsity soccer team while caring for his infant daughter. His girlfriend, Meg, has died of cancer, and his guilt about getting her pregnant casts a pall over his entire existence. Despite Ryden's need to hide the truth about his life, he makes a powerful connection with an amazing new coworker named Joni meanwhile discovering that Meg left behind messages in journals hidden shortly before her death. As he uncovers more and more of Meg's secrets, the past threatens the future he's worked so hard to build. Verdi ratchets up the drama and tension by planting one of Ryden's feet firmly in the past and the other in an uncertain, perhaps unrealistic future. His belief in a Division I college athletic career begins to shatter under the weight of homework, cash-flow problems, day-care issues, and his fragile emotional state. Teens will be hooked by the premise but will stick with Ryden and his friends in this all-too-real portrait of a modern family.--Howerton, Erin Downey Copyright 2015 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Additional Information
Subjects Infants -- Fiction.
Teenage fathers -- Fiction.
Single-parent families -- Fiction.
Fathers and daughters -- Fiction.
Dating (Social customs) -- Fiction.
Young adult fiction.
Publisher Naperville, Illinois :Sourcebooks Fire,2015
Language English
Description 361 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN 9781492614401
1492614408
9781492608745
1492608742
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