Sweet Dead Life

"I found out two things today: One, I think I'm dying. And two, my brother is a perv."  So begins the diary of fourteen-year-old Jenna Samuels, who is having a very bad eighth-grade year. Her single mother spends all day in bed. Dad vanished when she was eight. Her sixteen-year-old brother, Casey, tries to hold together what's left of the family by working two after-school jobs-difficult, as he's stoned all the time. To make matters worse, Jenna is sick. When she collapses one day, Casey tries to race her to the hospital in their beat-up Prius and crashes instead.  Jenna wakes up in the ER to find Casey beside her. Beatified. Literally. The flab and zits? Gone. Before long, Jenna figures out that Casey didn't survive the accident at all. He's an "A-word" (she can't bring herself to utter the truth). Soon they discover that Jenna isn't just dying; she's being poisoned. And Casey has been sent back to help solve the mystery that not only holds the key to her survival, but also to their mother's mysterious depression and father's disappearance.

It's been almost a year since Jenna Samuels' stoner brother, Casey, bit the dust and returned as her guardian angel; a year since Casey and his "angel boss," Amber Velasco, saved Jenna's life and helped her foil the bad guys, more or less; a year in which Jenna has solved the true mystery of the universe: how to get one Ryan Sloboda to ask her out. Jenna's feeling mighty cheery about life and love. But Casey, whose doomed relationship with Lanie Phelps isn't doing much to distract him, has his own big question: Why is he still hanging around? Bo Shivers, a heavenly head honcho Jenna and Casey didn't even know existed, might have the answer. Bo knows something big is coming, something that might just change everything for Jenna Samuels, who once again finds herself up to her non-winged shoulders in heavenly secrets of global proportions-just as she's finally found the perfect homecoming dance dress.