The Theory of Everything by J.J. Johnson
It’s hard to know how to act when your best friend has died in a freak accident, especially when you were the only one there to witness it. People assume that after a certain amount of time you should start to feel better, get over it. However, this is not the case for Sarah, who is going through just that.
Her best friend, Jamie, died in an extremely strange incident at the school gym and Sarah still can’t stop reliving what happened. She has gone from a happy, social girl with good grades to a failing, uninterested teenager who can’t get off her snarkbox. Sarah has discovered the theory of everything – basically her theory of what life is about – and it’s bleak.
But then a deer crashes through the gym and dies in the exact place that Jamie did. Sarah discovers that in mythology the animal is believed to be a symbol for speeding dead spirits on their way. She starts to wonder if Jamie needs help to move on, or maybe it’s not Jamie who needs this?
As Sarah starts to let new people into her life, among them Emmett, Jamie’s twin brother, and ‘the possum man’, she gradually discovers a sense of forgiveness and calm to what she once thought was a pointless existence. For ages 13 and up.