Carlos is a high school senior who has a job as a guard at an art museum to earn extra money. Isabel is a high school senior who has been obsessed with death since her boyfriend was killed in a car accident a year ago. In alternating chapters, David Hernandez offers the compelling and distinctive voices of two teens whose lives come slowly together. Isabel has not been able to move beyond her grief or her fear since her boyfriend’s death. Carlos discovers that his girlfriend is cheating and feels betrayal and anger. The two meet through a mutual friend, one of many fine secondary characters experiencing their own real-world dramas (from a pregnant girlfriend to drugs to another deadly accident) that spill over into Carlos’s and Isabel’s lives. Hernandez writes with a poet’s grace as he offers up the world of these urban teens—and a sometimes amusing look at the seemingly quirky world of contemporary art—through the eyes of two sensitive, observant characters who often feel helpless but gradually find solace and hope in each other’s company. (Age 14 and older)

For a life to come together, sometimes it first has to fall completely apart.

Isabel is a regular seventeen-year-old girl, still reeling from the pain of her boyfriend's tragic death exactly one year ago.

Carlos is a regular seventeen-year-old guy, loves red licorice and his friends, and works at a fancy art museum for some extra cash.

The two have no connection until they both meet Vanessa, an intriguing new transfer student with a mysterious past. While Vanessa is the link that brings these two very different lives together, will she be the one that can also tear them apart?

In his stunningly beautiful second novel, David Hernandez gives his readers a poetic and profound story that tells of two completely different teenagers and how through everyday life and monumental tragedy lies endless possibility.