Gr 8 Up— Adriana has no idea how she ended up at the Compass Juvenile Detention Center. Sure, she's made some bad choices and associated with the wrong people, but she never did anything illegal herself. When she helps the wrong friend at the wrong time, she's left holding the bag and sentenced to seven months in juvie. She's just biding her time, dreading the awkward visits from her family, and trying to stay out of trouble until she loses her journal and it mysteriously reappears with notes from a stranger. Jon knows exactly why he is at Compass, but no one else knows the truth but his counselor. Rumors abound about what crime landed him in the detention center for his entire high school career. When he finds an uncatalogued book in the library and discovers it is an illicit journal from an inmate on the girl's side, he can't help but share his critique with the author. This modern-day Romeo &; Juliet story is told through alternating viewpoints, letters, and poems. Instead of family obligations keeping them apart, Jon and Adriana are separated by bad choices and an unjust system. The mystery of what Jon did to deserve his stay at the facility, and the truth, will break readers' hearts. VERDICT Hand this book to readers who enjoy emotionally raw, true-to-life stories like Saints of the Household by Ari Tison or Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.— Sara Brunkhorst

Two incarcerated teens find hope and connection within the pages of a shared journal.The silver lining of Adriana's court-ordered seven-month stint in Compass Juvenile Detention Center is the treasured journal where she writes her private thoughts in verse. After misplacing it, she's furious to find the journal shelved in the library, its pages defaced by someone else's writing. But this person isn't just writing commentary-he's writing to her. Jon has spent nearly four years developing a "fierce reputation" at Compass. The two create a clever method of exchanging the journal, shedding their tough exteriors and revealing their innermost selves to one another. Security inside the gender-divided facility renders in-person contact between Adriana and Jon impossible, but with help from their friends, they hatch a risky plan to lay everything on the line. The intensity of their infatuation escalates quickly, setting the pace for the story's action-packed second half, which includes a secret code, a hidden plan, and betrayal. Adriana has Moroccan, Greek, and Spanish ancestry, and Jon is Black; teens who are diverse in ethnicity, race, and ability live at Compass. Told in Jon's and Adriana's alternating perspectives, the story paints a vivid picture of a harsh reality but misses the opportunity to address class, race, and the impact of racism in the juvenile detention system in meaningful ways.An evocative glimpse into an unjust and unforgiving system with a gooey love story at its core. (authors' note) (Fiction. 13-17)