Playlist For The Dead

"2015 was a banner year for realism-based drama in young adult novels. The post-apocalyptic dystopias of the Hunger Games era have largely given way to personal apocalypses, and Playlist For The Dead centers on a big one: a 15-year-old trying to understand his best friend’s suicide by listening to his music. It’s remarkable for its structure, which invites readers to ponder how songs like Radiohead’s “How To Disappear Completely” or Wilco’s “How To Fight Loneliness” would sound to a depressed, bullied outcast. But it’s also touching for the conclusions Falkoff reaches, which aren’t as pat and simple as the song titles."