Juniper Lemon's Happiness Index
It's hard to keep close a person everyone keeps telling you is gone.
It's been sixty-five days since the accident that ripped Juniper's world apart. Life without her kind, beautiful, vibrant big sister Camilla is a colder, darker place.
Until she discovers the letter. The letter Camie wrote, but never got to send. It's mysteriously addressed to 'You' and dated July 4th - the day of the accident. Desperate to learn the identity of Camie's secret love, Juniper starts to investigate.
But then she loses something herself. A card from her daily ritual, The Happiness Index: little notecards on which she rates the day. The Index has been holding Juniper together since Camie's death - but without this card, there's a hole. And this particular card contains Juniper's own secret: a memory she can't let anyone else find out.
An unforgettable story of love, loss, mistakes and memories.
Julie Israel did a lot of telling stories before she ever figured out how to write them: around the campfire, in grade school parodies, at meals where she had to account for the peas that mysteriously vanished from her plate, but did not end up in her stomach.
She didn't try writing a book until high school, and didn't finish one until after she had graduated college, taught English in Japan, tutored, written freelance, begun volunteering, and completed her first secret mission as a spy. Okay, she was never a spy. She's still telling tales. It's one of her favourite things to do from her native Portland, Oregon, where she really does enjoy making art, learning, and sometimes vegetables.