Six Months Later

Richards, Natalie. Six Months Later. 2013. 323p. ISBN 978-1-4022-8551-6. Available as an eBook on Overdrive.

Chloe has always lived for the moment. Her motto might as well be “why do today what could be done tomorrow?” On a regular school day in May of her junior year, she puts her head down in her study hall instead of completing her assignment. When she wakes up, the room is dark, night has fallen, and there’s now coming down from the sky outside. In a panic, Chloe discovers she’s missed the last six months. Add to her terror the fact that Adam, the school criminal, shows up and tells her she just called him. What has Chloe been up to these last six months?

Her life changed dramatically once she joined the SAT study group. She’s now dating dreamy Blake. Her grades went from mediocre to outstanding, and she’s likely to be the valedictorian. She’s applying to Notre Dame and Brown, and knows she’ll get in with her perfect SAT scores. And she had a terrible fight with her best friend Maggie. Unfortunately, she doesn’t remember any of it.

Now that she knows something is missing, Chloe begins to reconstruct what happened to her, and all hints point towards Jillian, who moved away suddenly with her family from this sleepy Ohio town to California. But as she digs, she begins to discover that Blake scares her, she has feelings for Adam, Maggie is still mad at her but may come around, and her therapist may be involved in her memory loss.

As the pressure mounts, and as Chloe discovers her past, memories return. Poking around becomes deadly, however, and Chloe may not survive the truths she’s about to reveal.

Suspenseful and well-crafted, this book will be appreciated by fans of mysteries and realistic teen fiction with a twist.