By Nia Davenport
Balzer + Bray / HarperCollins, 2024
265 pages
978-0-06-325571-5
Age 13 and older
A former sci-fi nerd becomes the latest test subject of a terrifying technology she thought existed only on television. When Megan meets LC at a coffee shop, the girls (both Black) develop a friendship almost instantly. Fast forward a few weeks, to LC persuading Megan to take molly at a party. Megan wakes up on the lawn a few hours later—in LC’s body. Naturally, Megan’s parents are alarmed when she shows up on their doorstep, looking like LC but claiming to be Megan. Worse, Megan sees her real body there, at home. She and LC have clearly switched bodies. Megan has nowhere to go, and things are about to get weirder. Quickly seen and arrested on the street by the police, Megan is identified as Jade McCall, a girl who ran away a few months ago. As Megan bides her time living as Jade, with Jade’s anxious, overbearing parents, she pieces together clues about the apparent upheaval to Jade’s life that caused her to run away. But was it actually Jade who ran away, or a third girl—the real LC—in Jade’s body? Why would LC steal Jade’s body in the first place? And is there a way to return everyone to their rightful places? As Megan navigates her unnerving new reality, the reader catches glimpses of LC’s motivations in short, interspersed chapters. On the run herself, LC has utilized the body-swapping technology to survive—regretfully placing Megan and Jade in grave danger as well. Unwilling to trust the police, these three Black girls rely on their own grit and resourcefulness to defeat a powerful opponent. ©2024 Cooperative Children’s Book Center