Run Away With Me

Two teens flee fraught circumstances in debut author Simmonds’s thrilling evocation of Thelma & Louise. Upon returning home to find her abusive stepfather’s corpse, 17-year-old Jessie plots to flee Seattle to avoid being implicated in his death. When her crush—popular, wealthy Brooke—offers Jessie a ride in her vintage Mustang, Jessie readily agrees. As the girls embark on a cross-country road trip to Disney World, they resolve not to pry into each other’s reasons for leaving. Along the way, however, Jessie worries that she’s being chased by the police. Worse, she notices that a black van starts tailing them following their stopover in Salt Lake City, during which a man attempted to break into their hotel room. While outrunning their pursuers, the teens divulge more about their contrasting backgrounds—Jessie’s tense relationship with her single mother and her mom’s lousy boyfriends, and Brooke’s seemingly charmed life feeling overshadowed by her exceptionally successful siblings—and rely on Brooke’s surprising pickpocketing skills to fund their road trip. Simmonds builds lived-in character dynamics using natural-feeling dialogue that smoothly sows the seeds toward the girls’ simmering romance, while evenly paced revelations and a plot riddled with high stakes and near misses add grit. The pair reads as white. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)