"Sixteen-year-old Mari Novak is dead-and her problems don't end there. For Fans of The Good Place.
Mari never gave much thought to the afterlife before her untimely demise, but she certainly didn't think it would be an experimental wellness enclave called Paradise Gate-a place where the newly dead go to sort out the unfinished business of their lives. She also didn't think the biggest problem to plague her in life would follow her into the great beyond: her also recently deceased mother, Faye. Mari quickly realizes Faye is her unfinished business, and in order to move on to whatever's next, she'll have to find a way to forgive her dysfunctional mother for being no mother at all. But there's so much to forgive: never holding down a steady job, never having a stable home, and abandoning Mari in the end.
It's a lot to sort through, but faced with the possibility of being turned out into the abyss, Mari gets to work. She enrolls in the prescribed self- actualization classes (think: journaling, positive self-talk, and lots of Youga™). It all seems pretty hokey, but still, the assignments force Mari to confront difficult truths about her past.
When a shocking revelation about Mari's death captures the attention of the afterlife media, Mari is suddenly in the spotlight, her messy history being judged by the whole realm. She finds escape in an equally troubled boy, who takes Mari to an obscure part of Paradise Gate and introduces her to rebels who show Mari that this "wellness center" is not all it pretends to be. With classmates disappearing and an afterlife revolution brewing, Mari must decide whether to play it safe or break the rules. At stake? Her eternal fate. Literally."
"I'll Give You the Sun meets True Detective in this brilliant YA debut about saints, sisters, and learning to let go.
Tess da Costa is a saint-a hand-to-god, miracle-producing saint. At least that's what the people in her hometown of New Avon, Massachusetts, seem to believe. And when Tess suddenly and tragically passes away, her small city begins feverishly petitioning the Pope to make Tess's sainthood official. Tess's mother is ecstatic over the fervor, while her sister Callie, the one who knew Tess best, is disgusted-overcome with the feeling that her sister is being stolen from her all over again.
The fervor for Tess's sainthood only grows when Ana Langone, a local girl who's been missing for six months, is found alive at the foot of one of Tess's shrines. It's the final straw for Callie. With the help of Tess's secret boyfriend Danny, Callie's determined to prove that Tess was something far more important than a saint; she was her sister, her best friend and a girl in love with a boy. But Callie's investigation uncovers much more than she bargained for-a hidden diary, old family secrets, and even the disturbing truth behind Ana's kidnapping. Told in alternating perspectives, A Psalm for Lost Girls is at once funny, creepy and soulful-an impressive debut from a rising literary star.
Narrator List:
Callie, read by Saskia Maarleveld
Tess's Journal Entries, read by Kyla Garcia
General narration by Julia Whelan"
