Apart

Jessica, a serious, bookish sixteen-year-old from New Brunswick, places a Personals ad in the Globe and Mail. She is looking for her father, a drug-dealing philanderer who has recently taken off with the local hairdresser. Seventeen-year-old Sween — an authority-defying drop-out from northern Saskatchewan — responds. Over time they establish an intense but long-distance relationship in which they provide each other with advice and support as Jessica finds herself attracted to one of her father's biker friends, and Sween suffers a nervous breakdown after fending for himself in a cabin in the bush. Eventually, Sween travels east to help Jess stop her father from putting her autistic brother Timmy in an institution. The resulting encounter is a surprise to them both as they find reality at odds with the images they have of each other.

...a memorable and outstanding read...This is a thoughtful, engaging narrative that will undoubtedly speak to more mature young adult readers.

The authors of this 'novel-in-letters' capture teen angst and growth...The double author format allows the reader to become intimately acquainted with both Jessica and Sween, so different from each other and yet so similar in many ways.