A love story starring my dead best friend : a novel

From School Library Journal Starred Review. Grade 8 Up After 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Sixteen-year-old Cass Meyer's 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 Julia's play. Horner cleverly separates the action into two parallel plots—one occurring during Cass' summer solo bike ride from Illinois to California with Julia's 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 Green's Looking for Alaska (2005) and Nina LaCour's Hold Still (2009), Horner sensitively explores the hole left behind when we lose someone, and the slow emergence from grief that follows. Grades 9-12. --Debbie Carton

for Months, Cass Has Heard Her Best Friend, Julia, Whisper About A Secret Project. When Julia Dies In A Car Accident, Her Drama Friends Decide To Bring The Project—a Musical Called Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad—to Fruition. But Cass Isn't A Drama Person. She Can't Take A Summer Of Painting Sets, And She Won't Spend Long Hours With Heather, The Girl Who Made Her Miserable All Through Middle School And Has Somehow Landed The Leading Role. So Cass Takes Off. In Alternating Chapters, She Spends The First Part Of Summer On A Cross-country Bike Trip And The Rest Swallowing Her Pride, Making Props, And—of All Things—falling For Heather.

This Is A Story Of The Breadth Of Love. Of The Depth Of Friendship. And Of The Most Hilarious Musical One Quiet Suburb Has Ever Seen.

the New York Times - Regina Marler

a Love Story Alternately Pursues Two Narrative Tracks— The Present Day, In Which Cass Negotiates Her Painful Relationships With Ollie And Heather, And The Recent Past, In Which She Attempted A Solo Bicycle Trip From Chicago To California With Julia's Ashes, Planning To Scatter Them In The Ocean. Sometimes These Two Stories Don't Align, And Breakthroughs In The Past Are Followed By Disorienting Returns To The Same Issues In The Present. A Budding Romance With Heather Is Not Always Convincing, Either. But The Strength Of This Promising Novel Is Its Emotional Reach, From Mourning Through Identity Crisis Through New Love. Cass's Grief Colors Everything, And The Grief Itself Is Tinged Always With That Question She Never Let Herself Ask: Was She In Love With Julia?

For months, Cass Meyer has heard her best friend Julia, a wannabe Broadway composer, whispering about a top-secret project. Then Julia is killed in a sudden car accident, and while Cass is still reeling from her death, Julias boyfriend and her other drama friends make it their mission to bring to fruition the nearly-completed secret project: a musical about an orphaned ninja princess entitled Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad . Cass isnt one of the drama people. She doesnt feel at home with Julias drama friends, and she doesnt see a place for her in the play. Things only get worse when she finds out that Heather Galloway, the girl who made her miserable all through middle school, has been cast as the ninja princess. Cass cant take a summer of swallowing her pride and painting sets, so she decides to follow her original plan for a cross-country road trip with Julia. Even if she has a touring bicycle instead of a drivers license, and even if Julias ashes are coming along in Tupperware. Totally Sweet Ninja Death Squad is a story about friendship. About love. About traveling a thousand miles just to find yourself. About making peace with the past, and making sense of it. And its a story about the bloodiest high school musical one quiet suburb has ever seen. As she tries to sort out her feelings of love, seventeen-year-old Cass, a spunky math genius with an introverted streak, finds a way to memorialize her dead best friend.