Another Place by Matthew Crow (review)

After a spectacularly public breakdown sent her to the hospital, Claudette has returned to school as determined to get a handle on her depression as she is to face down any classmates tempted to give her a hard time about it. She has the steady support of her dad, his girlfriend, Paula, and her best friend Donna, though she doesn't always appreciate the latter two. Instead, she finds the presence of Jacob, a boy new to town, comforting in that he knows nothing of her history. She also has a goal—to find out what happened to Sarah, a wayward classmate who has gone missing. Claudette and Sarah were secret friends, brought together on nights when Claudette's illness wouldn't let her sleep and Sarah's clandestine meetings with older men on the beach left her feeling lonely and longing to escape their small seaside town. Claudette befriends a noted curmudgeon who, unbeknownst to her, has lost his adult son to a suicidal depression and who also knew Sarah for the abused, misunderstood girl that she was. The weighty issues that plague Claudette and her friends are leavened in this British import by snippets of humor and good-natured sparring between them, at least until Donna comes clean with how she really feels about Claudette's obsession with solving the mystery of Sarah's disappearance and, when her body is found, death. The many conversations Claudette has, as well as her inner monologues, add depth and context to the connections among the people in her orbit, emphasizing the compassion and, sometimes, heroic action needed to negotiate the complexities of remaining fully human when sordid circumstances, unethical characters, and even your own mind threaten to break you. KC