ALTHEA & OLIVER - Viking

Althea Carter & Oliver McKinley have been best friends since they were six; she's the fist-fighting instigator to his peacemaker, the artist whose vision balances his scientific bent.
Now, as their junior year of high school comes to a close, Althea has begun to want something more than just best-friendship. oliver, for his part, simply wants life to go back to normal, but when he falls asleep in class and wakes up in his bed three weeks later with no memory of the time that has gone by, he can't deny any longer that something is seriously wrong with him.
And then Althea makes the worst bad decision ever, and her relationship with Oliver is shattered. He leaves town for a clinical sleep study in New York, resolving to repair whatever is broken in his brain, while she gets into her battered Camry and drives up the coast after him, determined to make up for what she's done.
Their journey will take them from the rooftops, keg parties, and all-ages shows of their North Carolina hometown to the pool halls, punk houses, and hospitals of New York City before they once more stand together and face their chances. Set in the DIY, mix tape, and zine culture of the mid-1990's, Cristina Moracho's whip-smart debut is an achingly real story about identity, illness, adn love- and why bad decisions sometimes feel so good.