ARE YOU STILL THERE

Following a bomb threat at a high school, an anonymous hotline is set up to gather leads and provide students with emotional support.

Two years after a much-bullied girl tragically hanged herself, Central High is rocked when an angst-ridden student litters the school with threatening notes in the form of eerily defaced playing cards. Gabi, a straight-A senior, goody-two-shoes, and model citizen, is chosen to be on the student hotline team. Here, she forms relationships with several kids outside her usual circle—one of them being Miguel, a mysterious and flirty outsider to whom she finds herself increasingly attracted. The team begins receiving creepy calls and texts, and when the bomber begins leaving notes for Gabi, she realizes that she's a target, but she has no idea why. She doesn't want to tell her detective father about the notes because she's afraid he and her zealously overprotective mother will pull her out of Central. Meanwhile Gabi is worried about her depressed and rebellious sister, Chloe, and Chloe's friend, who seems morbidly fascinated with the gun their father keeps in the house. Interspersed through Gabi’s present-tense narration are sad, desperate, and sinister diary entries from the suspect, leaving readers to attempt to suss out clues as to their author. Here, everyone's a suspect.

An intriguing mix of a whodunit and social commentary on the tragic and all-too-common problems of bullying and teen suicide.