Every Borrowed Beat

When 17-year-old Sydney Wells finally receives a heart transplant after years of waiting and managing a heart failure diagnosis, she doesn’t know what to do with her new lease on life (“Instead of a finale, I got a curtain call—a second chance”). As Sydney searches for a new routine, she contends with guilt relating to her best friend Chloe, with whom she managed a YouTube channel called TheWaitingList, which both teens used to chronicle their experiences navigating heart failure. If Sydney’s condition “hadn’t taken a massive nosedive,” Chloe would have been next on the transplant list. Sydney decides to learn about her assumed heart donor, Mia, a decision that leads to her posing as Mia’s online friend and cultivating relationships with Mia’s family—and falling for Mia’s best friend, Clayton. Sydney’s wry and perceptive first-person narration injects lighthearted ambiance into mature and sobering examinations on death, mental health, and chronic illness. Utilizing warm character dynamics and genuine depictions of grief, Stewart (The Words We Keep) explores the experience of learning how to begin again in this sincere portrayal of life, loss, and first love. Main characters cue as white. Ages 12–up. (Mar.)