A young woman struggling with depression and suicidal ideation faces the end of the world in this heartrending YA novel about hope and resilience.
On the morning of her 19th birthday, white college freshman Avery Byrne plans to take her own life. Avery is overwhelmed by depression: "The sadness had spread from my brain to my bones. It lived in my body." Avery's suicide attempt is interrupted by an emergency alert: an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth and will hit the planet in nine days. She decides she must keep living long enough to reunite with her family and her "beautiful, Brown, golden, loud, brilliant" best friend Cass, with whom Avery has secretly been in love for years. However, returning to her hometown forces Avery to confront her complicated relationship with her conservative Irish Catholic parents and the reality of having feelings for Cass.
Jen St. Jude conveys Avery's emotional state with visceral intensity, including the misery of Avery's depression ("sadness like sand in my blood") and the euphoria of her feelings for Cass ("I felt her in every cell of me"). The novel deals with heavy topics such as mental illness, homophobia, and generational trauma; however, it is also an optimistic story about a young woman's gradual healing--with the added urgency of apocalyptic stakes. Avery realizes that "[t]here is no life so hopeless tomorrow can't be at least a little better." If Tomorrow Doesn't Come is a gorgeously written portrayal of one teenager's decision to continue living and loving through impossible circumstances. --Alanna Felton, freelance reviewer