• Age: 12 to 18
• Grade: 7 to 12

Two best friends. The boy who loves them both. What happens when there is only one girl left?
Piper and Sloane are best friends. They grew up together, dress alike, and never do anything without each other. To Sloane, Piper has always been extraordinary: fierce and pretty and powerful. The only thing that makes Sloane special is that Piper chose her for a sisterhood that was supposed to last forever. That is, until Piper caught Sloane kissing Piper’s boyfriend, Soup—and the next day, Piper is found dead, washed ashore on a beach.
As Sloane and Soup relive their deep, sometimes painful histories with Piper and face a future without her, they are racked by questions: Who is to blame for Piper’s death? How do you make amends for hurting someone you love if that person is no longer around? And how can you ever move on and love again? Told from alternating perspectives in Karen Rivers's signature lyrical prose,All That Wasis a story about the complexity of friendships, forgiveness, and growing up.

Karen Rivers is the author of numerous novels, mostly for young adults. Her books have been nominated for a number of awards, including the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize and the Silver Birch Award. Karen has a BA in International Relations, which makes her an asset on any trivia team that emphasizes global politics in the late 1980s or early 1990s. As a lifelong hypochondriac, she once thought she'd be a doctor but realizes now that writing is a much more sensible career choice as it allows enough time to research symptoms on Google without having to actually go to medical school. Karen lives, reads and writes in a yellow house near the beach in Victoria, British Columbia, and can almost always be found online at www.karenrivers.com.

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“Keeps readers on the edge of their seats.” —VOYA,starred review
“[A] gripping novel.” —Publishers Weekly
“The layered plotting, in which key moments seem to spiral toward one another through the disjointed timeline, adds intriguing complexity . . . Emotionally dark and keenly observant.” —Kirkus Reviews
“The descriptive prose is lovely and insightful, reading more like free verse than straight narrative. . .In the end, a shocking account emerges, rewarding patient readers with a portrait of a dangerously close friendship.” —Booklist