Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

Brooklyn is still trying to cope. It’s only been a year since Lucca left her, and she can’t shake that feeling away. She feels the loss, the emptiness…and wishes time and time again she would’ve been home when the accident happened. Would things have gone differently? Still, she glides through life, smiling empty smiles and pretending Lucca can see and hear her, is near her even though it’s only a cemetery or a comic book shop she used to go to every Friday with him…

Nico gets up everyday feeling the same emptiness and loneliness. It’s bad losing your little brother, but even worse when he was your best friend too. Nico takes out his frustration by pounding the pavement, the track…running running running. At school, he becomes invisible, not talking to anyone – not even old friends. And home? It seems the only thing his parents can see is perfect Lucca and how Nico will never be able to hold a candle to his spirit.

But tragedy lends itself to more tragedy in Brooklyn and Nico’s life when a good friend of theirs, as well as Lucca’s, kills himself. He couldn’t handle the fact that he was the one behind the wheel…the one in the car when Lucca died…and now there’s two gone.
But are they?

Brooklyn has nightmares. She wakes up screaming, trying to run away from the dead, but Gabe keeps following her, both in and out of sleep and he won’t stop until she understands what he’s saying to her. Equally, Lucca is keeping Nico awake, haunting him with warnings, hoping Nico understands the message that is so important to Lucca.
But can both the living and dead understand what is truly going on?

Lisa Schroeder writes YA novels that are to be devoured. Quick-paced with a wealth of characters, this novel not only visits the impact of death on teens who have experienced a loved one dying, but it also mildly segues into her previous novel, I Heart You, You Haunt Me. These two novels of Schroeder’s share a lot in common theme-wise, but build that theme differently, from the characters’ relationships with not only their friends, but their families as well, which defines who they are. Joining the ranks of other supernatural YA fiction, Schroeder’s novel will be well-received by YA readers, but it’s her departure into prose that makes this one stand out.