When I was fourteen, my mother checked this book out for me at the library and said, "Have at it." It is the only book my mother recommended to me, seeing as how she's never been much of a reader, but it left an impression on her and she wanted to share that with me.

It may have been the first adult book I ever read. And eleven years later, I came across it at a book fair and had to buy it for nostalgia's sake. I began flipping through it, and wound up reading it all over again, and loving it even more now that I could understand more of its adult themes. I love the juxtaposition between Catherine and Noelle, one painfully awkward, the other compulsively vain and selfish. Both are as flawed as they are intriguing; even though I can't say I truly liked either of them, I found myself taking sides with every perspective switch.

It's a unique story of two strangers who ultimately collide with a catastrophic boom.