Maybe all I have is my own two feet. And the confidence that they can bear my weight when the world goes sideways. Maybe that’s enough.

Corey, Holly, and Savitri are best friends — Corey and Holly are brother and sister, while Corey and Sav have a relationship. Their bond is tight, and one of the activities that keeps them connected as a threesome is their interest and participation in freerunning through different areas of Chicago. It’s their favorite activity, right up there with being mega invested in comics.

The night the story opens, things look like they’re solid, or about as solid as they could be knowing what’s between them. The three of them are freerunning, and when their fun comes to an end, Corey and Holly hop into one car, while Sav hops into another. Lingering in the back of their minds, though, is the inevitable future. They’re going to be pulled apart because Sav wants to attend school outside Chicago, even though it means leaving behind her best friends and her family. But Sav’s torn about this, too, because she loves the city and she loves her friends and boyfriend.

That night, everything changes when the car Corey and Holly are in is approached by a gunman, shots are fired, Corey dies, and Holly falls into a deep coma.

Chasing Shadows is Swati Avasthi’s sophomore novel, and it’s a hybrid graphic novel, illustrated by Craig Phillips. Together, the pair write an incredibly evocative, engaging, and wholly different type of story about grief and, more interestingly, friendship.

The three friends in this story are well-drawn, and not only are they well-drawn both through the writing and through the illustrations, they’re interesting because they partake in activities and have passion for topics that aren’t always readily seen in YA. But what makes it noteworthy isn’t that they’re different. It’s instead that the story embraces these things about them in a way that makes them your typical, average teenagers. Sure, they engage in freerunning. Sure, they love comic books. Sure, Sav is a main character of color (she’s Indian). But it’s never about the fact these teen do things that are outside the norm of many YA characters. It’s instead that they’re normal.

Avasthi’s story is told through two points of view, and this set up is important to the underlying theme of friendship. Holly, who is in a coma and struggling not only with all-encompassing grief but also an unnamed mental illness — which may or may not have been brought up through the grief and coma — brings us into a really dark world. She wants to give up and die in order to be with her brother. Much of her voice is through the graphic elements, which ties into not just her love for comics, but also ties into her relationship with Sav and Sav’s heritage. As readers, we know there is something really wrong with Holly, too. Her thinking is marred by her grief, but it’s more than that. She truly believes she’s got nothing worth living for, and in her post-coma recovery, it becomes clear that she’s not the person she was just weeks ago. Something is off.

Savitri is the other voice, and she, too, is struggling with immense grief. She’s not only lost her boyfriend in the incident, but her best friend Holly is hurting and is ill. And it’s that illness which pulls Sav into considering the value of friendship. How much does a person give to another in order to make it work? How much do you have to sacrifice of yourself in order to be there for a friend? Does it change or shift depending on the state that that friend is in? Avasthi does a spectacular job of allowing the reader to not only consider Sav’s empathy for Holly’s situation but also forcing the reader to understand that Sav’s life and future can’t be put on hold for the sake of her friend, either. At what point does she make a decision to stay with her friend and help her through her illness and at what point does she have to walk away? The choice Sav makes is — spoiler — the riskier one, but it’s ultimately what made this book not just a good read, but a great one. I think too often there’s a desire to go for the easier, happier ending, especially when it comes to a story about grief and loss and mental illness. But Avasthi doesn’t do that here. She instead serves the characters in the way that they best need to be served.

The struggle and consideration and reconsideration of friendship is what stands out in Chasing Shadows, even more so than the grief element. In that respect, the comic panels are brilliant because they unify the two girls through their shared passions but these panels also divide them because of the stories within them and what those stories mean to them as individuals. For Holly, it’s a coping mechanism. For Sav, it’s part of her heritage. Avasthi never names a mental illness here, either, which gives it almost more weight than had she diagnosed her character’s pain. It’s dealt with with incredible respect and care, and in many ways, it’s that care and honor of the illness (and even more so the girl suffering with it) that makes what Sav chooses to do even more painful  . . .  and more honest.

Chasing Shadows is well-paced, but the writing is never sacrificed. This is a strongly written, gritty book which is only enhanced by the graphic aspect. It never feels like a gimmick; instead, it serves a marked purpose that further develops the characters and adds depth to their relationships. In many ways, this feels like a true YA novel to me. It has great teen appeal to it, and the hybridization enhances that. As noted earlier, too, Phillips’s illustrations are strong. They never felt like an afterthought.

Although this book makes use of the graphic elements and does delve into some mythology, it’s wholly contemporary. There’s nothing fantastical here. In many ways, it’s through those non-straightforward storytelling elements that the book is an excellent example of contemporary realistic YA. Readers who dug Avasthi’s debut novel Split will find this to be an excellent next read, and anyone who wants a gritty, painful story about loss, friendship, and about “what comes next” will want to pick this one up. Because this book delves into mental illness in a really unique manner, I would go so far as to say those readers who loved the way in which Nova Ren Suma explores mental illness in 17 & Gone will want to give this book a read, too. They aren’t at all the same, and the styles are markedly different, but the ways in which both books give an interesting glimpse into mental illness make them a worthwhile pairing.

This is a book that will linger in my mind for a long time, and it’s one that solidifies Avasthi as a must-read author for me. She gets tough contemporary YA so right.

Chasing Shadows is available now from Random House. Review copy picked up at ALA. Swati will be sharing a guest post later this week, too, on the very topic of friendship in YA and in her book.