What I did not know until I just went looking for her website is that Rebecca Stead is also the author of FIRST LIGHT, a 2007 book that I loved. (I don’t know why I didn’t know this; it’s right on the first page of the galley.) I handsold it basically as “a City of Ember read-alike with a global warming bent,” but it was so much more than that (I usually said more, too, but that was the boiled-down version). I loved, loved, loved that book, and I should review that book here, because I can talk about that book for a long, long time.

I’m not sure what I can say about WHEN YOU REACH ME. I loved it, I can tell you that. But this is another one of those books that I have been trying to review for weeks (seriously – I finished this book in the middle of March) and cannot seem to find the right words to describe.

I’ll try, a little, and hope that I don’t make you run for the hills. I want to make you run and get this book when it comes out, is what I want. It’s about a girl named Miranda, who’s lost her best friend, Sal. It’s about mysterious letters she begins to get, letters that seem to predict the future. Letters that ask her to respond. Letters from a writer who seems to think that they are going to save someone’s life. It’s about one woman’s quest to win the 20,000 Pyramid. It’s about how seemingly unrelated lives have both nothing and everything to do with each other. It’s about what happens when our childhood friendships begin to change, when our family relationships began to change.

It’s a school story/mystery/family drama with a dash of fantasy – or, maybe, magical realism would be closer to the truth.

And it’s written in a completely maddening yet wholly absorbing sort-of backwards way. The story opens almost with the end of the tale, but hops back and forth, back and forth, each time revealing a little bit more, another side, more nuance. Pieces of Miranda’s thoughts, life, and heart are dribbled out for you, one slow, agonizing bit at a time; fast enough to keep you enthralled but slow enough to speed up your reading. It really is both fast and slow paced; forward and backward; realistic and fantastic.

It is one of my must-recommends and one of the most interesting books I’ve read all year. I am sure someone will review it with brilliant words, but mine are inadequate for the task. All I can do is say: more, Rebecca Stead; much more.

Pre-order it from your local independent bookstore!