An 11-hour surgery to correct her scoliosis leaves 16-year-old Eve in terrible pain, and the only thing that will ease it is her medication Roxanol, on which she quickly becomes dependent. Her best friend, Lidia, and her neighbor Thomas help keep Eve relatively grounded, but the drugs produce powerful hallucinations. Nevertheless, she keeps taking the drug, hiding a stash so her mother will get her more, and, accordingly, the hallucinations continue, making it increasingly difficult for the reader to determine what is real in Eve's life and what is delusion. The novel, told in Eve's first-person voice, moves back and forth in time; the past ich is largely about her and Lidia told in verse, and the present in prose. This covers some well-trod ground but is saved from overfamiliarity by the characters, especially Thomas, who is endlessly patient and caring with the often difficult Eve as her condition worsens. Will Eve find her way back to reality? Readers of this cautionary tale will hope so.

Eve is in pain all the time.The 16-year-old Boston girl is recovering from scoliosis surgery and growing increasingly dependent on opioids to numb the trauma. As her body heals from the agonizing effects of the surgery, she must also negotiate relationships with her physically and emotionally absent mother; her estranged former best friend, Lidia; and her classmate and maybe-crush, Thomas. Her mind confused by painkillers, Eve believes she has made a devil's bargain as she hears the voice of her telescope talking to her: It promises that her pain will disappear, but so, piece by piece, will the state of Minnesota. The mystery for Eve is to untangle this riddle, one she believes is the key to both her pain and the three people closest to her. As she grapples with addiction, Eve is forced to confront what in her life can be fixed, what she wants fixed, what must stay broken, and what can be transformed into something new. Told in alternating chapters of poetry and prose, this intense, unflinching story asks what it means to be repaired and reveals the forces that bring people back together after being torn apart. Eve and her mother are White; Spanish-speaking Thomas' grandmother came from Puerto Rico; and Eve's mother's partner is a woman who is cued as Black.A gratifying story of a young woman's path to recovering pieces of her past self through a present laced with pain. (author's note) (Fiction. 14-18)

After extensive surgery, -pale white- Boston-based scoliosis patient Eve Abbott, 16, is -fixed.- With the help of bars, screws, and many staples, the -tilty twist- of her spine is gone. Still experiencing excruciating physical pain and rejected by her white best friend Lidia Banks, -born with a single hand,- whose trust she betrayed, Eve turns to self-medication for escape. Her Roxinol pills take her to a surreal place where the telescope in her room offers help-contingent on a piece of Minnesota disappearing each time. Eve knows she is becoming reliant on the medication but isn-t sure how else to grapple with the pain of her past and present. Mann (What Every Girl Should Know) employs a mixture of verse and first-person narrative. Eve-s physical and emotional experiences resonate, and the supporting cast-Eve-s professor mother, too busy to meet her daughter-s needs; strong, confident Lidia, who might never forgive Eve; and Thomas Aquinas, the teen-s assigned partner for a high-school-wide -buddy system- program, the only one who truly sees Eve and offers -exasperating compassion--are vividly drawn in this hopeful contemporary novel. Ages 14-up. Agent: Kerry Sparks Levine, Greenberg Literary. (May)