I didn’t read young adult books until I was an adult largely because it didn’t exist in the form it does now. There’s a lot of talk about what’s appropriate for young adults in YA—especially when it comes to censorship and banning books—and I’m utterly baffled. The things I read in high school were incredibly dark, challenging, and violent. We read The Color Purple (important literature!) and The Heart of Darkness (not so much!). Furthermore, kids all have the internet these days. Hide the girls-kissing-girls books if you must but I promise they will seek it out if they want to. I really don't have more words to describe this book. I'm going to be talking about this non-stop, probably for the rest of my life. I don't know if I have ever so confidently recommended a novel. This is, truthfully, a spectacular piece of literature. Jen, the nuanced, sensitive exploration of Avery’s queerness is an important part of this book, depicting her experiences around belonging in community as well as her own self-acceptance. This speaks deeply to what young people are dealing with now, in exceptionally fraught political and societal times. This book is devastatingly brilliant. Jen St. Jude is hands down one of the most talented new voices in YA, and soon, everyone will know it." ―Leah Johnson, bestselling author of You Should See Me in a Crown and Rise to the Sun St. Jude examines the viciousness of depression and the inexplicable way it has of being exacerbated by everything and nothing... This story is raw, but unflinching, too, until the bitter end." — Booklist

To return once more to Joy Oladokun’s music, I have noticed in her lyrics the theme of holding onto life when you could just as easily let go. When you want to let go. When you sometimes feel like you have no other choice. I’ve often wondered if, for some people, life doesn’t feel like such a question to be answered all the time. Joy seems to be much more like me, like Avery. Their music captures not only the hurt of being a queer person in the church, but the potential beauty of religion–all its encouraged kindness and compassion, the purposeful, persistent search for meaning. Avery Byrne has secrets. She’s queer; she’s in love with her best friend, Cass; and she’s suffering from undiagnosed clinical depression. But on the morning Avery plans to jump into the river near her college campus, the world discovers there are only nine days left to an asteroid is headed for Earth, and no one can stop it. Avery Byrne is on her way to kill herself when she receives news that there’s an asteroid heading towards earth. This follows Avery on what happens when you find out you and everyone you love has only 9 days left to live. Almost 2 years ago, you wrote a first-person essay in the late Catapult magazine about writing, and being a writer. It’s about whether our passions and dreams can save us, and what it means to be committed to the craft, without—somehow without—expectations.

An electric, urgent miracle of a book that asks what - and who - we dare to live for. Avery's story will shatter your heart and fill it with light again.' It seems rude to already be looking into the future—savor all of this now!—but what are you working on? Therein lies the major theme of the book: why live, why try, why endure it all when Tomorrow might never come? A worthy addition to a very narrow convergence of mental health crises that already exist at the verge of the end of the known world." — BCCB At the time of writing this, I don’t know if my first novel will sell or if it won’t, despite my hard work and stellar agent and the many brilliant friends who have helped me write and rewrite and dream again. But I know with certainty that I’m proud of it. It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done, I want to share it, and one day soon I will, in one way or another.

There’s a certain relief to stopping, isn’t there? How did it feel to be writing and editing this during the pandemic, which demanded that (many of us) stop, for an unspecified amount of time? This book reduced me to a puddle in the best of ways. Jen St . Jude's debut is a sapphic end-of-the-world narrative about a college freshman struggling with suicidal ideation. This is a book that could save someone's life –it never pulls its punches, but still treats its readers with so much care. A cross between Nina LaCour and Emily St . John Mandel , this speculative story is the right book for right now."

Discussion

GENRE and PLOT DETAILS are mandatory in the header/ topic title. Do NOT create vague topic headers like "Romance" or "YA Fantasy" or "Looking for this book." Threads with vague headers will be CLOSED. We Are Okay meets They Both Die at the End in this YA debut about queer first love and mental health at the end of the world-and the importance of saving yourself, no matter what tomorrow may hold.

I also have to shout out St. Jude for writing a butch love interest in such a beautiful way. For making her her own person with her own story and an existence outside of the main character's life. For using the term "butch" often, and for letting the main character call her "handsome" on multiple occasions. For showcasing a relationship with gender and masculinity that, even though it wasn't a central plot point, was touching and realistic. About the novel: On the morning Avery plans to end her life, she learns an asteroid will end the world in a matter of days. She fights her way home from college to help her family and thegirlshe loves, but while they chase their final tomorrows, can Avery embrace her own? For fans of We Are Okayand ​The Last True Poets of the Sea. Willkommensgutschein zur Erstanmeldung (gilt nicht für preisgebundene Ware) Rechtliche Hinweise Rechtliche HinweiseThis is also a very immersive book — when I finally looked up from reading it, it took me a moment to remember that we weren’t 9 days from the end of the world — and I think that’s part of why the emotions of it work so well. This is a book that tugs on your heartstrings, makes you empathise so deeply with its main character, and part of that is how easily absorbed you get by it. If Tomorrow Doesn't Come is a novel that carves a space in your heart and remains there forever. Breathtakingly written, Jen St. Jude masterfully explores queerness, depression, and shame, while beautifully capturing family, friendship, and love, and the intersections that often exist between these things. Hopeful above all else." - Rachael Lippincott You have such an organic sense of the stakes of this time of life, the swings between the identity we hold, the one we want, and all the confusion fogging around that. I’m obviously speaking from my own far-removed vantage point, but I remember how everything felt like life or death, and how uncomfortable I was in my own skin at times. It occurs to me that creating your personal narrative is a similar experience to writing a novel. In the early chapters, one doesn’t know that it’s going to be what one wants it to be. WE ARE OKAY meets THEY BOTH DIE AT THE END in this YA debut about queer first love and mental health at the end of the world-and the importance of saving yourself, no matter what tomorrow may hold. i stood there for however long i could without moving, letting the pain register in my brain and the cold in my ribs. i heard peter and cass calling my name, but all i could do was stand there and cry, because everything was so beautiful, and i didn’t know how to feel it.”