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When You Reach Me meets Starfish in this heartfelt contemporary middle grade about a misfit girl who finds a way to skip all of the hard parts of life.
J.P. Green has always felt out of step. She doesn't wear the right clothes, she doesn't say the right things, and her body...well, she'd rather not talk about it. And seventh grade is shaping up to be the worst year yet. So when J.P. discovers a mysterious door in her neighbor's treehouse, she doesn't hesitate before walking through. The door sends her three days forward in time.
Suddenly, J.P. can skip all the worst parts of seventh grade: Fitness tests in P.E., oral book reports, awkward conversations with her mom...she can avoid them all and no one even knows she was gone.
But can you live a life without any of the bad parts? Are there experiences out there that you can't miss?
This moving middle grade novel about mental health, body acceptance, and self-confidence asks what it truly means to show up for the people you love—and for yourself.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 2, 2024 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781547613045
- File size: 192728 KB
- Duration: 06:41:30
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from February 19, 2024
Stecher’s speculative, heartrending debut eloquently portrays the joys and sorrows of being in seventh grade—and the importance of remaining present. Though Joan Phyllis “J.P.” Green’s first day of school is riddled with bullying based in anti-fat bias from classmates, the news that her favorite sci-fi show, Admiral K, is getting a movie brightens her dismal mood. Following a flippant wish to skip the awfulness of middle school, a new doorknob magically appears in her tree house. Passing through the door drops her consciousness into her own body, three days in the future—while she was physically present through the intervening time, she carries no memory of the events that occurred therein. With the help of her best friend Kevin Takagi, J.P. cautiously experiments with the door. But as the bullying escalates and her beloved Pop Pop begins chemotherapy treatments for cancer, her time-skips become an “escape hatch” from life’s unpleasantness—and all the good parts in between. Stecher doesn’t hold back, utilizing tear-jerking prose to portray devastating events throughout J.P.’s life, the harsh consequences that skipping them reaps, and the catharsis that facing her fears affords. J.P. and her family are Jewish and read as white; Kevin is Japanese American. Ages 9–12. Agent: Sam Farkas, Jill Grinberg Literary.
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