Thirty to sixty days

Let's face it: 17-year-old Hattie is a compulsive liar and self-styled petty thief. She also, as it turns out, has only 30 to 60 days to live, as do two of her classmates at St. Croix High: Carmen Diaz, class president and one of two out students, and Albert (Albie) Chang, who beat childhood leukemia but is still immunocompromised. The three have been infected with a deadly parasite created by Hattie's scientist mother. Remanded to a hospital isolation unit, they conspire to escape and, stealing a boat, head to Miami, Florida, where they encounter a whole gallimaufry of antic events, most engendered by Hattie's lies and all of which are carefully recorded by Hattie, who is determined to become an influencer to earn the $23,000 she feels she owes her mother. Will she succeed? Despite its dire title, Thirty to Sixty Days is a lighthearted, plot-driven coming-of-age romp with appealing characters. Great, page-turning fun.

News that they are about to die boots three Florida high schoolers out of individual ruts. Wood offers readers a trio loaded with personal issues and ripe for plenty of fizzy chemistry. Narrator Hattie Larken, who reads White, spins constant, outrageous lies and has a habit of breaking into people's homes to make and post videos about their private lives. Following a kindergarten bout with leukemia, Chinese American Albie Chang has been forced into the role of kid cancer survivor. And Carmen Diaz--beautiful, overachieving, proudly out grandchild of Mexican immigrants--has multiple relationship problems. So when all three are exposed to an experimental mind-altering parasite developed by a local bioweapons lab, hardly have they been forcibly checked into a quarantine ward than they check out for a weekend of wild Miami misadventures in which stolen boats, an endangered sea turtle, encounters with a pop star, viral videos, and a comically suspenseful round of fantasy board gaming figure prominently…as do rescues, sniping, betrayals, revelations, budding romance, and liberating acts and declarations. The realistic end leaves the trio cautious allies. The eventual breakdown of Hattie's stubborn resistance to accepting her single mom's steadfast love offers a path to renewed self-esteem, while Albie's observation that his own parents are now "working on treating me less like their sick kid and more like their kid who happened to be sick that one time," is well taken. Three engaging odysseys in one, lit by humor of a particularly dark and spiky sort. (Fiction. 14-18) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.