How She Died, How I lived

Mary Crockett

I was one of five. The five girls Kyle texted that day. The girls it could have been. Only Jamie—beautiful, saintly Jamie—was kind enough to respond. And it got her killed. 

On the eve of Kyle's sentencing a year after Jamie's death, all the other "chosen ones" are coping in various ways. But our tenacious narrator is full of anger, stuck somewhere between the horrifying past and the unknown future as she tries to piece together why she gets to live, while Jamie is dead.

Now she finds herself drawn to Charlie, Jamie's boyfriend—knowing all the while that their relationship will always be haunted by what-ifs and why-nots. Is hope possible in the face of such violence? Is forgiveness? How do you go on living when you know it could have been you instead?

About the Author

Mary Crockett grew up the youngest in a family of misfits in southwestern Virginia. An award-winning poet, she has her MFA from the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow. Her debut YA novel, Dream Boy, coauthored with Madelyn Rosenberg, published in 2014. Mary lives in an old farmhouse along the old Great Road in Virginia with various residents from the Kingdom Animalia, some more welcome than others.