Liz Emerson planned it all out. She knew what date she’d crash her car and kill herself. She plotted where it would happen, when it would happen, and then she allowed herself 7 days to change her mind. If she couldn’t find a reason to, she’d go through with the plan.

Falling Into Place by Amy Zhang begins when Liz follows through with the plan. But this isn’t a story that’s told in a linear way. Instead, as Liz lies in the hospital, we’re given flashbacks and flash forwards into her life. What could possibly make her want to kill herself? For someone as popular and put together and respected as Liz, it seems like suicide would be the last thing she’d have on her mind.

This story is told through a surprising narrator, though readers will catch on pretty quickly to that. They may not be clear on who the narrator is until the reveal at the end, but this deliberate choice is why Zhang’s novel stands out from many others and why the book itself is fresh.

The narrator knows Liz and knows Liz well. And that narrator isn’t willing to lie about who or what Liz was in life. Liz, despite appearances as a popular and well-respected girl in her school, is far from a nice girl. She’s manipulative. She’s mean. And she’s persuasive. Those characteristics are precisely why she’s respected though — people don’t want to get on the wrong side of her because they know that nothing good could come from it. But even being close to Liz is a problem. Her best friends, Julia and Kennie, can’t escape her manipulations.

Thanks to Liz, Julia’s found herself with a bit of a drug problem and Kennie has had an abortion. While both girls make those choices for themselves, Liz’s persuasive power and the fear that acting against what Liz says they should do would be cause for worse, they follow through. They listen. They’re under her control, whether they like it or not.

Then there’s Liam. He’s a nice guy. A really nice guy. And he’s at the hospital almost immediately after Liz’s crash. Not because he and Liz are a couple and certainly not because she’s ever given him the time of day. In fact, Liz and her friends did something awful to Liam early on in their high school career that marred his reputation forever. But Liam, being a bigger person, saw through her actions and knew that maybe, just maybe, there was something bigger and something better lurking beneath Liz’s surface. He was, in fact, the person who knew it was her car that crashed. He recognized it and recognized Liz as the driver from the shirt she was wearing. Rather than allow himself to let her be, he instead decides to follow his own good heart and be there waiting for her, whether she recovered or not.

Liam is good, but Liam was also part of the problem, and not by his own choice.

Falling Into Place is fast paced, but it’s nuanced. What seems like a cut-and-dry story of a mean girl isn’t that straightforward. It’s easy to dislike Liz because she’s not likable. But her unlikable characteristics have some explanation. She is exceptionally lonely. With a father who died when she was really young by an accident she witnessed and a mother who travels all the time and finds Liz to be more of a pain than a child to love, she finds herself spending a lot of time in her home alone. Drinking. The mean things she does aren’t done as a means of being vindictive but instead, they’re ways to keep her entertained. To fill her own life with some kind of meaning, despite the fact that she recognizes and knows there are consequences.

Liz is filled with regret for her actions, but the problem is when you’re at the top of the social ladder and people respect you and fear you, admitting your weaknesses is an impossible thing to do.

During the seven days prior to her suicide, Liz tries to change herself. She goes out of her way to try to say the things she’s intended to say forever — she wants to apologize to people and she wants to reach out and ask for help. She tries, and as readers, we see that it’s not done as a means of seeking sympathy, but as a way of really, truly trying to change herself. We know she feels bad, and it comes through in little and surprising ways. There’s a moment when Liz reflects upon her decision and she notes that she has to kill herself on the same day her dad died to minimize the days per year her mother would have to grieve. She’s not doing this to make people feel bad; she’s doing this for the exact opposite reason. She wants people to be free of her being a bad influence and a problem.

She reaches out. During those last few days, she tries to change. She goes to her school counselor and asks for help, but the counselor unintentionally turns her away. She speaks up about feeling depressed, and she’s turned away. Not because the counselor doesn’t care, but because the counselor can’t do anything for her and, unfortunately, her reputation precedes her. Liam sees through her. But Liam also knows he can’t reach her. Kenna and Julia, despite what Liz believes, care deeply about her. They know her. But, as Liz notes, they might not be as perceptive to her inner turmoil as she wishes they could be, and reaching out, she thinks, would be an incredible sign of weakness. Would they care? With how she’s hurt them, why wouldn’t they hurt her back?

Worth noting that readers get to make the choice on whether or not Liz is redeemed in the story. Zhang doesn’t give us a solid answer, and because of who the narrator is, it’s further complicated. This was a smart, savvy narrative choice because it’s the kind of story that has no good answers at the end. It can only lay out the facts, and those facts are inextricably tied to the narrator sharing them, and that narrator shows both the good and the downright ugly. The narrator loved Liz, but the narrator didn’t love everything Liz did.

Falling Into Place is tightly written, and the complex structure works. This book is a fast-paced read, and it’s one that could easily be done in one sitting. Personally, I appreciated walking away a few times because there was a lot to sift through — Liz is anything but one-dimensional and holding the contradictory thoughts of her meanness with the sadness she felt inside required some away-from-the-page reflection. The writing is solid and at times really lovely, and while some of the renderings of high school and secondary characters can feel a little bit flat, it’s forgivable because of who the narrator is, how long that narrator has followed Liz, and, perhaps the thing worth noting but not lingering on, the author wrote this book when she was 18. Without being beyond her own high school experience, it’d be impossible to see the wider world. Which isn’t to say it’s bad — it’s far from that — but instead, some of the depictions read a little young and yet, they show really huge promise.

Zhang’s debut is a memorable one, and I can see this being a title getting some Morris discussion. It hadn’t been one I paid a lot of attention to, but I’m really glad I picked it up because it far exceeded my expectations and left me eager for what Zhang will write next. This book could be called If I Stay meets Before I Fall and that would be an accurate description, though I liked Falling Into Place more than either of those titles. There are shades of Thirteen Reasons Why in this book, too. While a mash-up of the three books may make this sound like it’s the kind of book that’s been done before, it’s not. Falling Into Place is new, different, and it will have huge appeal to readers who liked any of those prior titles without it ever feeling like it’s trying to be any of those titles. This is a book for your realistic YA readers who like complex characters.

Falling Into Place is available now. Review copy received from the publisher.