From the author of Like No Other, the novel Entertainment Weekly calls "One of the most poignant and star-crossed love stories since The Fault in Our Stars": What if the last hope to save your family is the person who broke it up to begin with?
"Fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, and Sharon Flake will find much to love in [Don't Fail Me Now]."
--School Library Journal
Michelle and
her little siblings Cass and Denny are African-American and living on
the poverty line in urban Baltimore, struggling to keep it together with
their mom in jail and only Michelle’s part-time job at the Taco Bell to
sustain them.
Leah and her stepbrother Tim are
white and middle class from suburban Maryland, with few worries beyond
winning lacrosse games and getting college applications in on time.
Michelle and Leah only have one thing in common: Buck Devereaux, the biological father who abandoned them when they were little.
After news trickles back to them that Buck is dying, they make the
uneasy decision to drive across country to his hospice in California.
Leah hopes for closure; Michelle just wants to give him a piece of her
mind.
Five people in a failing, old station wagon, living off
free samples at food courts across America, and the most pressing
question on Michelle’s mind is: Who will break down first--herself or
the car? All the signs tell her they won’t make it. But Michelle has
heard that her whole life, and it’s never stopped her before....
Una LaMarche triumphs once again with this rare and compassionate look
at how racial and social privilege affects one family in crisis in both
subtle and astonishing ways.