The Art of Feeling

Book excerpt: For fans of Jennifer Niven’s All the Bright Places and Meg Wolitzer’s Belzhar comes an emotionally thrilling tale of a friendship between a girl who feels too much and a boy who feels too little, as they discover that maybe pain can bring people together and not just tear them apart. Samantha Herring has been in constant pain ever since the car accident that injured her leg and killed her mother. After pushing her friends away, Sam has receded into a fog of depression until she meets Eliot, a carefree, impulsive loner who, is unable to feel any pain at all. At first, Sam is jealous. She would give anything to not feel the pain she’s felt for the past year. But the more she learns about Eliot’s medical condition, the more she notices his self-destructive tendencies. In fact, Eliot doesn’t seem to care about anything—except Sam. And as they grow closer, they begin to confront Sam’s painful memories of the accident, memories that hold a startling truth about what really happened that day.