Like The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Elizabeth Norris’s Unraveling blends realistic coming-of-age issues with a gripping science fiction world.

Unraveling’s heroine, sixteen-year-old Janelle Tenner, is used to having a lot of responsibility. She balances working as a lifeguard in San Diego with an intense academic schedule. Janelle’s mother is bipolar, and her dad is a workaholic FBI agent, which means Janelle also has to look out for her younger brother, Jared.

And that was before she died…and is brought back to life by Ben Michaels, a mysterious, alluring loner from her high school. When she discovers a strange clock that seems to be counting down to the earth’s destruction, Janelle learns she has twenty-four days to figure out how to stop the clock and save the planet.

The countdown has begun, but the biggest mystery is Ben himself—the boy who saved her life. What happens when she starts to fall for the one person she can’t trust?

• A High-Stakes YA Thriller: With only twenty-four days until the end of the world, sixteen-year-old Janelle Tenner must unravel a conspiracy that’s bigger than she ever imagined.
• An Unforgettable Paranormal Romance: She should be focused on saving the planet, but she can’t stop thinking about Ben Michaels—the mysterious loner who brought her back from the dead.
• A Shocking Sci-Fi Mystery: The countdown clock is only the beginning. As Janelle digs deeper, she uncovers a secret truth about alternate universes that will change everything she knows about her world—and Ben’s.
• Complex Family Dynamics: Between her bipolar mother and her workaholic FBI agent father, Janelle has always been the responsible one. But saving the world might be one responsibility too many.