About the Book
-
Author:
- Jen St. Jude
- Genre:
- Contemporary
- Voices:
- Cis Girl
- Lesbian
- White (Non-Specified)
Cover Story: A Sunset For the Ages
BFF Charm: Let Me Love You
Talky Talk: Unhappily Ever After
Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+
Relationship Status: With Tears Streaming Down My Face
Trigger Warning: If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come features a character with extreme depression and includes instances of suicidal ideation.
Cover Story: A Sunset For the Ages
A red-haired white girl and a brown girl with a bun are standing shoulder to shoulder looking at each other, one person facing the viewer and one facing the sky. There’s a gorgeous sunset behind them, but there’s also something wrong in the air—an asteroid, hurtling toward the ground. It perfectly encapsulates the beauty of this novel and makes me want to crack it open to read it again.
The Deal:
Avery Bryne is depressed. A freshman at Eaton, she plans her suicide one morning, writing good-bye letters to her roommate and her unrequited love of her life, Cass. But when she’s about to drown herself in a river, Cass calls, and tells her the news: an asteroid is headed towards Earth, and the inhabitants have nine days to come to peace with the thought of mass extinction.
Unable to give her family and friends grief at this horrible time, Avery goes back to the dorms and finds a ride back to her parents’ house in New Hampshire with her roommate, Aisha. Cass meets her there. Together, they plan to live out their lives the best way they know how… with each other. But first they have to clear the air…
BFF Charm: Let Me Love You
Avery has undiagnosed depression and is struggling at school. She was recruited as a soccer star for Eaton but isn’t playing well; she’s failing a class, which has never happened before; she is in love with her best friend, Cass, who doesn’t want her back. If Homegirl needs a shoulder to cry on, she’s got me. My heart hurt for Avery as I read her innermost thoughts; as someone who has clinical depression, I saw so much of myself in Avery.
Swoonworthy Scale: 7
This book is about the end of the world, yes; but it’s also about the relationship between Avery and Cass. There’s a lot of unresolved issues that they must face when they meet up again after the asteroid news breaks. The book is structured in a way that we see their friendship/relationship years before they go to separate colleges, and in the days leading up to the asteroid’s impact. Can we say slow burn?
Talky Talk: Unhappily Ever After
The talk of depression in this book is hard, and real: the feeling that you’re inadequate, that your family deserves better, that your friends won’t miss you—those are all thoughts that depression can tell you when you’re feeling its effects. There’s a part where Avery doesn’t want her three-year-old nephew to rely on her because she doesn’t want him to feel her absence once she’s gone. You know that the author, Jen St. Jude, has experience with depression as she’s so good at capturing it.
Bonus Factor: LGBTQ+
Avery isn’t sure if she’s gay, just that she loves Cass. We get to know Avery through her questioning, to her wavering belief in her sexuality; from worried about being damned because of her Catholic upbringing, to fully embracing who she is. It’s a complex dance and Jen St. Jude does a wonderful job of showing us all the facets of what Avery goes through as she comes out.
Relationship Status: With Tears Streaming Down My Face
Book, you were devastating and beautiful. You’re a must-read for anyone who has wondered what depression is like, to those in treatment for it. But I fear it’s not the type of book for people who are currently in the depths of depression. It might make one feel worse.
Literary Matchmaking
In The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen, the main character finds love in the midst of dealing with depression spawned by her father’s death.
A college student (also suffering from depression) learns what it’s like to fall for someone in Amy Zhang’s The Cartographers.
In Emily X.R. Pan’s incredibly moving The Astonishing Color of After, a girl seeks to process the suicide of her mother.
FTC Full Disclosure: I bought this book with my own money. I received neither compensation nor kittens in exchange for this review. If Tomorrow Never Comes is available now.
