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Blackout

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
Some secrets are best left forgotten.

When Allie Castillo wakes up after a terrible car accident, with head injuries and zero recollection of who she is or what happened, one thing haunts the edges of her mind: the crash may not have been an accident.

Her body still bruised, she returns to a life she doesn't recall, to a house that's unfamiliar, and to a family that doesn't feel like her own. School is another minefield—her boyfriend wants his girl back, her best friend wants to carry on their old partying ways, and the mysterious guy at the back of the classroom wants nothing more than to unlock the door to her forgotten memories.

As Allie learns about her notorious past, she grows to dislike who she was pre-accident. She's determined to change, determined not to repeat the same mistakes. But when her life is put in jeopardy once more, Allie realizes that her only chance at survival is to remember who she used to be—even if that means abandoning who she wants to become.

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    • Publisher's Weekly

      November 15, 2021
      In this loosely plotted amnesiac mystery, “tawny”-skinned high school senior Allie Castillo, the nearly 18-year-old narrator, awakens sans memories after leaving a party and crashing her car into a tree. Returning to home and school in small-town British Columbia, Allie is shocked to discover that she’s been regularly in trouble with the police due to incidents of shoplifting, vandalism, and underage drinking. She also learns that she was formerly a talented aspiring actor who clashed with her single mother; regularly ditched school with her best friend, blond top student Zoe Harris; and cheated on her affectionate “golden”-skinned boyfriend, school soccer captain Damien Sanchez. After Allie begins to experience vivid dreams, fragmented flashbacks, and “reality-altering hallucinations,” she teams up with “weird social pariah” and former friend Mason Byrne, who reads as white, finding clues that suggest an explanation differing from the accident’s official account. Savvy readers will intuit the guilty parties involved before the revelation, and the motives behind the mystery’s reveal remain simultaneously vague, but Allie’s stream-of-consciousness narration nevertheless pulls readers in. Ages 14–up.

    • School Library Journal

      May 1, 2022

      Gr 8-10-Allie awakens in a small town Canadian hospital with zero recollection of how she got there or even who she is. Receiving a guided tour of her life, she must surmise exactly what sort of person she might have been before. The more she studies photos and how people interact with her, the bigger the hint that she really wasn't a nice person. It seems like she may have been a party girl with little regard for the feelings of others-the sort who might cheat on her own boyfriend with her sister's live-in boyfriend-and the sort who might stage an accident to cover up an attempted murder. Complicated friendship and love triangles abound with perhaps too many characters too difficult to distinguish from one another; a mostly white cast doesn't help this. Parker and James are described with dark skin and dark hair, but like many in the text, they aren't very fully drawn characters. Amnesia serves initially as a clever plot device, allowing Allie to take a voyeuristic look at her own life and allowing flashes of memory to illuminate the evening leading up to her accident. Ultimately, the narrative wraps up too abruptly as though the author grew weary of dripping out the details at such a slow trickle, and couldn't resist pouring out the whole bucket all at once. VERDICT A solid thriller with a literal cliff-hanger of a conclusion.-Leah Krippner

      Copyright 2022 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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  • English

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