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Alikay Wood’s Thirty to Sixty Days is a hilarious and irreverent coming-of-age YA novel in which three teens facing uncertain futures embark on a madcap adventure that challenges each of their identities.
Hattie Larken doesn’t know if she’s ever really been real in her life. A compulsive liar with a quick-witted response to everything, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to just skate through the rest of high school until she can graduate and escape it all: the mind-numbing monotony of this town, the guilt of everything that happened with her dad, and the debt her mom’s dealing with that she feels responsible for.
But then Hattie finds out she’s dying. Not like in that overdramatic way that people sometimes say they’re dying. She’s literally dying. Apparently, she was exposed to a parasite because of a mistake her mom’s company made. (And no, the irony of that all is not lost on Hattie . . .) And she’s not the only one. Two other kids from her class have also been exposed to the parasite: Carmen, who seems to be totally perfect, with the class presidency, a loving family, and a totally beautiful girlfriend; and Albie, a quiet kid who survived childhood cancer only to deal with this, which feels like an incredibly cruel joke from the universe.
Hattie, Albie, and Carmen are told they only have 30 to 60 days to live. But instead of just sitting around a hospital and waiting to die, the three kids form an unlikely alliance to live the last days of their lives out to the fullest. Stealing and sailing a boat to Miami? Absolutely. Adopting the turtle that a random college student hands to them? Of course—they couldn’t leave Scooter to fend for himself! Sneaking into the sold-out music festival in town? You better believe it! And if Hattie just happens to find a way to raise some money for her mom through filming all their misadventures—well, she’s not going to not do that then.
Snarky, bold, and deeply real, Thirty to Sixty Days examines the ways that three teens grapple with the thread of imminent death—and how each ultimately discovers what life ought to be.
