Review by Booklist Review
Bailey's best friend, Vanessa, dies in a car crash on a snowy night, and Bailey is devastated. She wonders why Vanessa was so far from home and where she was supposed to be going. Frustrated and desperately missing her friend, Bailey "borrows" an AI computer app from one of her moms that's designed to replicate an individual based on uploads of personal data, such as emails, texts, journals, and social media posts. The app works, and Medema's novel is punctuated with Bailey's chats with the persona she calls V. At first, V. can't answer Bailey's most heartfelt questions, so "feeding" the app becomes an obsession. Bailey shuts out and alienates people important to her in her quest for more data for V. Medema captures perfectly the crushing grief of losing a friend and the mess of emotions it involves. The characters are well developed, including Vanessa, who appears in flashbacks or as V. in the app. Finally, there is bitter acceptance of loss, which is not something to get over but rather something to learn to live with.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up--This book brings to light the heartache, pain, and emptiness felt when grieving from a loss. Anchorage, AK, teen Bailey (short brown bob) and her best friend Vanessa (long red hair) are the definition of best friends. But when Vanessa dies in a car accident in a part of town far from her house, Bailey is left with many unanswered questions about where her friend was going that night. Bailey misses Vanessa so much that she creates a chat bot using Vanessa's old texts and emails they shared together. Bailey, hoping this bot will bring her closure, bites off more than she can chew when she learns through AI-Vanessa that Vanessa was hiding a secret that would have torn them apart. Medema's story focuses mostly on Bailey's grief, which is heightened by her relationships with her ex-boyfriend Cade, who seemingly wants to be with her again, and Vanessa's boyfriend Mason, who relies heavily on Bailey for companionship. The way Bailey deals with grief feels completely natural and realistic; she is an emotional and introspective character. Readers will sympathize with her, but may also ponder how far is too far when it comes to receiving closure. In the end, Bailey learns an important lesson about what true friendship feels like, and that forgiveness may be the key to dealing with grief. Most characters appear white. VERDICT For readers who loved Nina LaCour's We Are Okay and E. Lockhart's We Were Liars.--Kharissa Kenner
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Heartbreak is best remedied with Pop Rocks, ice cream, and illicit champagne. If only all wounds were so easily mended. On a snowy January night, Tundra Cove High School senior Bailey Pierce is drowning her sorrows over ex-boyfriend Cade with her best friend, Vanessa Carson, when Vanessa receives a text that causes her to flee their cozy sleepover and head out into the treacherous Alaskan night. She never makes it home. Her car is found beneath the cliff below an icy mountain road--a road she shouldn't have been on if she were heading home to meet her boyfriend, Mason, as she claimed. Grief-stricken and unsatisfied with the explanation of the accident, Bailey, who has been coding since she was 4, creates a virtual Vanessa from an old AI program created by one of her moms. V, as she nicknames the chatbot, effectively simulates Vanessa, a former Junior Olympics--bound cross-country skier and keen book blogger, but the V that emerges is not the friend Bailey thought she knew. Intricately plotted and emotionally impactful, this story suspensefully and viscerally peels back the layers of the girls' friendship. Short chapters, Google search histories, and strings of text messages heighten the emotional punch, while the ethical implications of Bailey's creation are thought-provoking. Main characters read as White; Esther, Bailey's newfound friend, is cued as Indigenous. Emotions run high in this skillfully crafted tale. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
