VICTOR AND NORA

At a young age, teens Victor and Nora became all too familiar with death.

Several years ago, Victor lost his brother and Nora her mother. Now, Victor interns at a lab where he is working on a technology to freeze and reanimate living things, work that has led his colleagues to call him a genius. Nora, on the other hand, is battling a degenerative neurological disease that will result in her untimely death. Determined to enjoy what is left of her life and to die on her own terms, Nora decides to take her life on her 17th birthday, before the disease makes her unrecognizable to herself and her loved ones. But then she and Victor fall in love, and Victor proposes an experimental strategy that could give them extra time together—or could ruin their relationship forever. While the book’s dialogue and characterization are compelling, the plot leans on predictable romantic tropes—most notably a quirky Manic Pixie Dream Girl pulling an awkward, brooding scientist out of his shell—leaving little room for surprises. The book’s illustrations are stunning, brilliantly moving between sepia- and blue-toned palettes to heighten the story’s mood. Victor appears White. Nora, her father, and brother have brown skin and wavy, black hair; her late mother’s name was Sulani Faria, but there are no clues to the family’s cultural or ethnic identities.

An entertaining romance that leans into tired tropes.