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)