After Zero

Christina Collins

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Genre: young adult, contemporary

Published: September 4, 2018

Pages: 256

I was so happy to receive an advance copy of this title, out this Tuesday, September 4, 2018. Thank you to our partners at Sourcebooks. 😍

Everyone needs to read this beautiful book. Author Christina Collins has written a unique debut novel aimed at middle schoolers or anyone who has felt invisible and alone.

Elise is an 8th grader attending a public school for the first time after being home-schooled. She’s just trying to fit in when everything she says has a terrible result and people are starting to talk about her and not in a good way.

Her mother is no help and is extremely distant and remote since the death of her husband, Elise’s dad. They are isolated and she has no friends except for a neighbor girl.

Elise is a talented poet and writer but when it comes to speaking, she just can’t. Highly recommend for all young adults especially those who sit in the back and pray no one calls on them.

Book summary:

Sometimes silence is all you can count on.

Elise carries a notebook full of tallies, each page marking a day spent at her new public school, each stroke of her pencil marking a word spoken. A word that can’t be taken back. Five tally marks isn’t so bad. Two is pretty good. But zero? Zero is perfect. Zero means no wrong answers called out in class, no secrets accidentally spilled, no conversations to agonize over at night when sleep is far away.

https://www.christinacollinsbooks.com