Hit by Lorie Ann Grover

Sarah has planned her day out. Today is the day she is going to give Mr. Haddings, her school’s grad student Poet-in-Residence, her poem that will declare her true feelings for the man. She has used her poetry journal to declare her feelings for the man and believes he returns some of her sentiment despite the last couple of poems he’s read to the class. While walking to catch the bus with her best friend, Sarah drops her poem and rushes back out into the street to retrieve it. That one decision changes everything for Sarah.

Mr. Haddings is on his way to the school, confident he has made it clear to Sarah he is not interested in anything other than a student-teacher relationship. Just in case she hasn’t gotten the hint from both the poem he read to class and the poem he wrote for the class, he is armed with a speech to wipe out all doubt. He glances away from the road for just a second and hits something with his car. When he pulls over to check on what he hit, he is horrified to find Sarah sprawled on the pavement with blood surrounding her.

This book takes place over the course of three days, mostly while Sarah is in the hospital. The perspective switches between Sarah while she struggles with family tensions, her best friend, and her concerns about her future and Haddings, the teacher who is desperately trying to apologize to Sarah and her family who are ready to make him pay for what he’s done. While there is realization that happens in both main characters, there is also quite a bit left unresolved when the book comes to an end. I would have liked some kind of epilogue in the short YA book, maybe a year later to find out whether Sarah is in college, how her family is doing, etc.

****Booklook Bloggers provided me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and fair review. I was not compensated in any way for either a negative or a positive review.