Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith

Kiri's parents have taken off for an extended vacation, leaving her home alone for the summer. All Kiri wants to do is practice her music and finally kiss her best friend (and crush) Lukas. Then she receives a call requesting that someone come and claim her dead older sister's possessions from her last apartment. Kiri is the only one who can respond, and when she does, she discovers some shocking truths about her sister's last years that her parents kept hidden from her.

Wild Awake is indeed a wild book, filled with madness and joy and grief and crazy-good writing. The story starts out mildly enough, with Kiri intently focused on her music and practice schedule. Learning the truth about her sister's death and how she lived, and coming to grips with the lies her parents told her, jolts Kiri out of her complacency and her summer plans. She's aware of all of the lies and the careful way she lives her own life, and she begins throwing caution to the wind. Kiri takes huge risks, she falls passionately in love with a boy named Skunk who has a tumultuous past of his own, and her reactions to the things happening in her life are curiously strange and emotional. Smith walks a fine line between reality and imagination in Kiri's narrative, and her story is one that demands to be read without any expectations or preconceptions. Wild Awake is a book that readers will want to contemplate, thrumming with life, passion, and the excitement of wild and exhilarating love.

Cover Comments: I love the orange and purple of this cover, and how full of energy and joyous the figure of the girl is. This cover caught my eye right away, and is probably at least 75% of the reason that I read the book.

Wild Awake will be available May 28th, 2013!

E-galley provided by publisher.