The Insomniacs by Marit Weisenberg (review)

Struggling with insomnia after a diving accident takes her out of competition for part of her junior year, Ingrid begins to focus her restless nights on the abandoned house next door, the site of several break-ins. One night, she notices that Van, her childhood crush, is also awake and at his window watching the house, which, she finds out, he and his friends used as a place to party until an unfortunate bender left Van with a hole in his memory and a feeling that something bad happened there one night. Ingrid is having a hard time remembering something too, and she's certain her inability to recall the moments leading up to her fateful dive is the thing that is holding her back from getting on the board again. It's an intriguing setup à la Rear Window, but unfortunately, the story loses focus on the mystery and veers into the territory of soap opera, with a drug ring headed by a teen kingpin (bordering on mustache-twirling villainy), a sordid but predictable affair, and jumbled climaxes of two mostly separate plot lines. The romance between Ingrid and Van is inevitable but still sweet, though, and for all its wandering, the book comes to a satisfyingly tidy happy ending. Yovanoff's Places No One Knows (BCCB 4/16) gives a more sophisticated story of two teen insomniacs, but Van and Ingrid are acceptable company for the early hours of the morning.