Review: PLAYLIST FOR THE DEAD by Michelle Falkoff

The jacket copy of PLAYLIST FOR THE DEAD by Michelle Falkoff compares this novel to YA favorites like THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER and THIRTEEN REASONS WHY. The jacket copy is dead on.

HarperTeen, January 2015.

This debut novel tackles the tough topic of teen suicide with unexpected humor and a flash drive full of music — music left by Hayden as something of a suicide note for his best friend Sam. Naturally, Sam is distraught. He’s not only Hayden’s only friend (honestly, Hayden was his only friend, too), but he found Hayden on the night after they had a fight at a party. At the funeral, Sam is upset at the fakeness of everyone there — mostly the Bully Trifecta, which includes Hayden’s older brother.

But Sam isn’t sleeping much — he’s mostly listening to his playlist and (possibly in insomnia-fueled hallucinations) talking to someone who might be Hayden on Google Chat. When he’s awake, he’s trying his best to just get through the day. Which has lead him to finding a new friend in Astrid, a girl he’s never talked to who goes to his school. Crazy from lack of sleep and grief, and with someone seemingly out to get the Bully Trifecta, Sam starts to look for clues that might tell him why Hayden killed himself. And, slowly, the night of the party is revealed — both to the reader and to Sam, who only knows half the story.

PLAYLIST FOR THE DEAD is beautiful and articulate and funny and everything YA readers — both teen and adult — crave in a juicy, tear-jerking contemporary novel. Michelle Falkoff, much like Rainbow Rowell, is an author to watch, and I certainly can’t wait to see what she does next.