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Summary
Summary
Our entire lives are online, but what if the boy you love actually lives there? For fans of Adam Silvera comes a story about the future of relationships.
Eden has always had two loves: her best friend, Lacey, and her crush, Will. And then, almost simultaneously, she loses them both. Will to a car accident and Lacey to the inevitable growing up and growing apart.
Devastated by the holes they have left in her life, Eden finds solace in an unlikely place. Before he died, Will set up an account with In Good Company, a service that uploads voices and emails and creates a digital companion that can be called anytime, day or night. It couldn't come at a better time because, after losing Lacey--the hardest thing Eden has had to deal with--who else can she confide all her secrets to? Who is Eden without Lacey?
As Eden falls deeper into her relationship with "Will," she hardly notices as her real life blooms around her. There is a new job, new friends. Then there is Oliver. He's Lacey's twin, so has always been off-limits to her, until now. He may be real, but to have him, will Eden be able to say goodbye to Will?
Sarah Everett deftly captures the heartbreak of losing your best friend and discovering love in the unlikeliest of places.
Author Notes
Sarah Everett grew up in enchanted forests, desert islands, and inside a magical wardrobe. She speaks two Nigerian languages and a small amount of Afrikaans, and was also president of her high school's Japanese club (which was only slightly less nerdy than it sounds). She now lives in Alberta, Canada, where she moonlights as a graduate student and writes young-adult novels. She believes in chocolate, daydreaming, and good mistakes. When she's not writing, Sarah is probably nose-deep in a book, bemoaning her nonexistent sense of direction or engaging in some " car -aoke" while she tries to find her way home. Her first book was Everyone We've Been . Visit her on Twitter at @heysaraheverett.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Eden's longtime crush, Will, is killed in a car accident just before high school graduation, on the very night they finally kiss. When she returns Will's jacket to his mother, she is given the phone number to In Good Company, software that replicates the voice and personality traits of the departed. Eden uses the service to chat with Will, or at least a facsimile of him, via telephone. She goes to him for advice and comfort when her plans to be a camp counselor go up in smoke; when she and her best friend, Lacey, have a falling out; and when she discovers her mother cheating on her father. But Eden's continued crush and growing dependency on Will prevent her from developing relationships with real people, especially a boy she is just beginning to trust. Everett (Everyone We've Been) makes the improbable seem plausible in this novel, which is part unrequited love story, part cautionary tale about grief turning to obsession and fantasy. Ages 12-up. Agent: Suzie Townsend, New Leaf Literary. (Jan.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
Cautious good girl Eden's crush Will died suddenly before graduation, her best friend pulls away as summer begins, and her high-achieving family starts to splinter. Phoning a digital recreation of Will becomes a soothing habit but keeps Eden anchored to the past. Behind the futuristic premise is a solidly realistic coming-of-age story about Eden's struggles to face her grief and fears. (c) Copyright 2019. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Eighteen-year-old Eden's life is all about change. Lacey, her best friend, is inexplicably distancing herself, canceling their summer plans to work as camp counselors and, instead, starting to hang with a different crowd. And then there's Will, whom Eden has loved for four years Will, who died in a car crash. It seems impossible to cope with the loss of both her best friend and the object of her affection. But then she discovers a high-tech outfit called In Good Company, which offers a chance to communicate with Will or at least those parts of him that he had uploaded into a complex computer program. Eden becomes obsessed with talking by phone to the disembodied voice of the simulated Will, running the risk of losing contact with real life and with Oliver, who loves her. Everett has written a not-unfamiliar love story, but what makes it unusual is her invention of In Good Company. Its service is not altogether plausible but will appeal to techies; the rest of us will stick around for the romance.--Michael Cart Copyright 2018 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-Eden's life has been a set of constants and safety: her best friend Lacey, her crush Will, and her overachieving family are all predictable and reliable, until Will is killed in a car accident two weeks before high school graduation. Lacey begins drinking and distances herself, hanging out with a new set of friends Eden doesn't like, ditching Eden's carefully constructed summer as well as college plans. Eden's grief over losing Will overwhelms her until Will's mother gives her a phone number that leads her to a Cognitive Donor bank, where she can call and listen to Will's voice at any time. This disembodied Will responds to Eden and assuages her grief, offering encouragement and round the clock support, but Eden's reliance on him holds her back just as she needs to move forward. As her perfect family begins to fall apart and reconciliation with Lacey seems impossible, Eden realizes that endings are also beginnings, and relying on herself is the best way to pursue happiness. This emotional whirlwind is easy to fall into, as readers will be curious about the Cognitive Donor technology just as those dealing with grief and loss themselves will connect to Eden's journey to acceptance. VERDICT Fans of Gayle Forman and Nina LaCour will appreciate Everett's emotional roller-coaster of a story.-Kerry Sutherland, Akron-Summit County Public Library © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A teen struggles with loneliness during the summer after high school.Sheridan "Eden" Paulsen is terrified of change. Her best friend, Lacey, deserts her for a new group of friends, she discovers her mother cheating on her father, and she has no one to talk to. But then she calls longtime unrequited love Will, who will be there "whenever [her] heart desires." The catch? Will Mason died two weeks before graduation. Before his accidental death, Will signed up to be a Cognitive Donor with In Good Company, a phone service that allows people to talk to a Companiona highly artificially intelligent facsimile of the deceased. Keeping her phone on as she moves through her summer, Eden takes Will with her everywhere she goes: to work, out with co-workers, and as she completes her summer to-do list, the pre-college list she and Lacey were supposed to tackle together. As summer wears on, Eden falls in love with Will despite knowing he's not real. Narrator Eden's position as the uncertain middle daughter in a family of achievers who know who they are and what they want will resonate with readers who are also unsure of their own paths. The speculative aspect of the Companion blends seamlessly with the realism. Eden and Will are black, Eden has a black co-worker, and everyone else is assumed white.Readers developing a sense of self will be in good company here. (Fiction. 12-18) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
I've cried more in the last week than I have in my entire life. Today the waterworks start when I wake up to a last-day-of-school text from my best friend, Lacey. All it says is WE MADE IT!!!!! with an overabundance of exclamation points, but it's really all she needs to say. Four years. Countless hours of interminable lectures. A hundred scandals. Two boyfriends. One broken heart. There's a long green robe that goes all the way to my shins hanging in my closet. A short navy blue dress beside it that I'll wear underneath the robe. A pair of black pumps for the fifteen most important steps of my life so far, and I only hope I can stay upright in them. We're graduating today. FINALLY, I write back in all caps, and I mean that it feels like I've lived four different lives in the space of high school, that so many days felt unending, eternal--like hell. But I also mean that it's really over and they wouldn't let us go back even if we wanted to. We made it, she says, but it's not totally true. We didn't all make it. Some of us were short a few credits or failed a class or got knocked up. Some of us were driving too fast around a bend two Friday nights ago. One of us will never graduate high school. I think of Will the whole time I'm getting ready. Curling my hair, getting dressed, doing my nails. When I drive to Lacey's and our moms stand shoulder to shoulder, wiping their eyes as they force us to take picture after picture in our graduation robes. "Oh my God, not you too!" Lacey exclaims when she sees me tearing up beside her as my dad yells for us to say pumpernickel. "It's sad," I sniff, defensive. I turn so Lacey and I are back to back, making finger guns to re-create the first-day-of-high-school pictures my dad took. It's cheesy as hell, yes, but I can't wrap my head around Lacey's composure, her total indifference to the fact that everything is about to change forever. "I can't believe Oliver got out of this," she sighs as we change positions at Dad's direction. Her twin brother, who is graduating with us and thus should be subject to all the parental weeping and reminiscing and photographing, left already to meet up with his friends before graduation. After we're done taking pictures, we pile into our cars to drive to McKillop High. Lacey rides with me, and as soon as we get into the car, she turns the music up high and starts to belt along with the radio. We're driving past Avery Park when I get the sudden urge to pull over. Will used to live close by, but that's not why I'm stopping. "What the hell?" Lacey says, turning down the music, when she sees where we've stopped. "Let's go in the tunnel!" I say, already climbing out of the car. "Are you serious? What are you, five?" she asks, correctly identifying the average age of the kids who are playing in the park right now. "Oh, come on, Lace!" I insist. "For old times' sake." Lacey has been edgy all day, and instead of letting loose with me, like I hope she will, she digs her heels in. "We're going to be late! And we're going to mess up our gowns," she says. Normally, this is the kind of thing I'd be worried about, but not today. Today there is this strange force pushing against my chest, a closed fist tight around my sternum. I wish I could burst into a run, outsprint the feeling. I wish I could leave it behind in this park Lace and I used to play in as kids. I make my way to the start of the tunnel, a winding, cylindrical slide that used to terrify us when we were little. Lacey follows. "Really?" she says, one last attempt to shame me into changing my mind, but it doesn't work. I climb the small stairs leading to the top of the slide, then, with one last look around to make sure I'm not endangering any kids, I push off down the slide. The tunnel is just as dark and winding as when we were little, but a lot shorter than I remember it. When I climb out of the other end, I can't catch my breath from laughing. "Dude," Lacey says. "Your robe." I grab her hand and pull her toward the front end of the tunnel. "What, do they not give diplomas to people with rumpled robes?" "Does it still make you want to shit your pants?" she asks, peeking into the tunnel. "More now than ever," I say. Apparently, those are the magic words, because after I go through again, she follows me, letting out a loud whoop that I hear from outside as she spirals down the tunnel. When she climbs out, she is laughing, and I convince her to go back one more time before we leave. As we start toward the car, I catch a bunch of parents side-eyeing us in our too-big graduation gowns. A chubby-cheeked kid suddenly bolts in our direction, nearly taking Lacey down in the process, as he runs for the mouth of the tunnel. "Nicholas, you come back here!" A flustered-looking woman hurries after him, but he doesn't stop. I turn around to watch, silently rooting the kid on. I want to crouch down beside him and tell him to use the tunnel, to keep flying through the dark while he's still allowed. "When's the last time we did that?" I ask Lacey when we reach my car, and she shrugs. Then I'm starting the car and tears prick the backs of my eyes and I hate that so many Lasts happen when you aren't paying attention. There would have been a day, just like any other day, when kid Lacey and Oliver and I would have raced to reach the tunnel first. We would have gone through it, whooping like Lacey did, like we always did, except that when we climbed off that day, it was the last time and we didn't know it. Excerpted from No One Here Is Lonely by Sarah Everett All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.