A Plague Year, A - Tapa blanda

It starts small, with petty thefts of cleaning supplies and Sudafed from the supermarket where Tom works. But the plague picks up speed, tearing through his town with a ferocity and velocity that surprises everyone. By year's end there will be ruined, hollow people on every street corner. Meth will unmake the lives of friends and teachers and parents. It will fill the prisons, and the morgues.

Tom has always been focused on getting out of his depressing coal-mining town, on escaping to a college somewhere sunny and far away. But as bits of his childhood erode around him, he finds it's not so easy to let go.

When home and family are a lost cause, do you turn your back? Or are some lost causes worth fighting for?

EDWARD BLOOR is the author of several acclaimed novels including Taken, winner of the Florida Sunshine State Young Reader Award; London Calling, a Book Sense 76 Top Ten selection; and Tangerine, which was an ALA Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults, a Horn Book Fanfare Selection, and a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book.