<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>A 2009 Sydney Taylor Award Notable Books for Teens winner</strong></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Bronze Medal winner for the Young Adult Fiction category of <em>ForeWord Magazine's</em> Book of the Year Awards</strong></p> <p><em>"Sometimes trees can look healthy on the outside, but actually be dying inside. These trees fall unexpectedly during a storm."</em></p> <p>For high school senior Parker Rabinowitz, anything less than success is a failure. A dropped extracurricular, a C on a calc quiz, a non-Jewish shiksa girlfriend—one misstep, and his meticulously constructed life splinters and collapses. The countdown to HYP (Harvard, Yale, Princeton) has begun, and he will stay focused.</p> <p>That's why he has to keep it a secret. The pocketful of breath mints. The weird smell in the bathroom.</p> <p>He can't tell his achievement-obsessed father. He can't tell his hired college consultant. And he certainly can't tell Julianne, the "vision of hotness" he so desperately wants to love.</p> <p>Only Parker's little sister Danielle seems to notice that he's withering away. But the thunder of praise surrounding Parker and his accomplishments reduces her voice to broken poetry:<br /><br /><em>I can't breathe<br />when my brother's around<br />because I feel smothered,<br />blank and faded</em></p>