Since We Last Spoke by Brenda Rufener (review)

Max and Aggi live next to each other; their fathers co-own a business; their older siblings, Cal and Kate, wrote songs together as a couple; and Max and Aggi are also in love. After an accident left Cal dead, Kate took her own life, and the families fell apart, with Max's parents filing a wrongful death lawsuit and Aggi's dad responding violently and filing a countersuit. Forced apart by a restraining order, Max and Aggi are in despair, wondering if their families will ever come to terms with their grief and guilt and remember the love they once shared. The distinct voices of Max and Aggi alternate: Max simply misses Aggi, while Aggi is angry as well as grief- and guilt-stricken. Despite her sympathy for her father who found his daughter hanging in her bedroom, she's losing patience with parents who have emotionally abandoned their living daughters. The ruminative cycles of grief make both characters' narration somewhat repetitive as they rehearse what they might have done differently, but readers who enjoy narratives of resilience after devastating loss will appreciate Aggi and Max's struggles to recover and find each other again. KC