Like Glass, by YA author and William C. Morris and Stonewall Award Honor winner Jen Ferguson (The Summer of Bitter and Sweet; A Constellation of Minor Bears), paints a passionate portrait of grief through a Métis teen's captivating, chaotic determination to understand her sister's death and why her father refuses to leave the place where it happened.
One year ago, Tate's older sister, Bronwyn, died of an aneurysm while living in a small town in the French Alps. Tate's Métis father and "white settler" mother left Toronto to bring Bronwyn's body home, but only Tate's mother came back. Now, the 16-year-old arrives in Chamonix with one goal: convincing her father to leave this snowy place. While there, Tate meets queer American ski jump athlete Agatha, who makes her heart beat like "a drum in a circle of other drums."
Ferguson precisely encapsulates the desolation of a tragic loss and the desperation to understand it. There is no fantasy here, but there is a familiar and near-mystic entropy in the foreboding undercurrent that Tate feels among the people who knew her sister and the places where she lived and died. Ferguson also adroitly depicts an eggshell-lined path to mending between an imperfect yet loving father and the only daughter he has left. She seamlessly folds racism into Tate's interactions with locals and plants a satisfying queer romance in stuck elevators, heart-stopping break-in missions, and a stealth road trip. Tate, who cuts the collars from her shirts and isn't a hugger, is a fully realized teen who acknowledges that "personhood is hard" in this deeply felt novel about sorrow and reconciliation. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer