Fade into the Bright by Jessica Koosed Etting (review)

“Last week, I sat in your office while you opened a small white envelope and told me how I’m going to die.” That’s what eighteen-year-old Abby writes to her genetic counselor after finding out that she inherited the gene that will give her Huntington’s disease from her father (and that her older sister did not). Now she’s spending her summer on California’s Catalina Island, staying with her hippie-ish aunt and trying to bury her emotions with hard work. She’s reluctantly drawn into a relationship with handsome Ben, a nascent filmmaker, but how can it be fair for someone to love her with what she will ultimately put them through? This is mostly an enjoyably soapy romance set in a glorious summer location, as Abby push-pulls at Ben while riding a rollercoaster of angst; even the explanation for why her father abandoned the family (he couldn’t cope with knowing he might have given HD to his daughters) and the family’s eventual rapprochement with him are dubious in their believability but successfully melodramatic strokes. More rawly credible are Abby’s emotions about her knowledge, especially as she processes what it really means to people around her, including the sister who may have been spared the disease but won’t be spared from being the survivor. There’s plenty of information about Huntington’s for the interested, but mostly this is a classic romance story of love persisting despite darkness. An authors’ note gives more information about their Huntington’s research.