Early Departures by Justin Reynolds.

Oh, my! Make sure you have your Kleenex handy.

This one not only pulled me in, but made me never want to let go. Jamal and Q had been best-friends-more-like-brothers for their whole lives. But that ended two years ago when Jamal’s parents were killed in a car accident. Jamal blamed Q, and in his grief completely froze him out of his life. Then the guys run into each other at a lakeside party. A fight makes things even worse than before, and Jamal storms away. But a short time later, he comes across a scene in the water that changes everything. Q is drowning and only Jamal is around to save him. So, this is what he tries to do, but despite his best efforts, Q dies in the hospital. That should be the end of the story of Jamal and Q……but sometimes second chances can be mysterious. Q is taken into a program that “reanimates” recently deceased people. A secret Center offers Q’s mom the chance to have Q back for a few more weeks. The catch is that he won’t know that he is reanimated or that he is going to die again. When Q wakes up, Jamal has a very short window to make things good between them. But is he ready to do this for the right reasons? Does he even know what’s right anymore? And, can he ever really be ready to let go? I loved these characters so much.  Highly recommended!  Place a hold on Early Departures today.

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