A Year to the Day tells the story of 16-year-old Leo as she and the people around her react to her older sister Nina's death in a car accident. The novel begins a year after Nina's death, as Leo and her family (her divorced parents, stepmom Stephanie, and her new baby half-sister) hold a memorial service for Nina. It then travels backwards chronologically, taking us through significant and less-significant moments in Leo's life in the year since she lost her sister. A major player throughout these memories is East, Nina's boyfriend; Leo, East, and Nina were in the car together on the night of Nina's accident, but only East remembers what happens. Leo feels close to East because he is the only other one who understands Nina's loss in the same way that she does, but she also resents him for remembering what happened that night - and refusing to tell her.

By virtue of the layout of the novel, this gets sadder as it goes on. When you're introduced to Leo & family a year after the event, in chapter one, they seem damaged but coping; as the story continues, getting closer and closer to the night they lost Nina, the grief becomes more and more potent, and Leo (our POV character) copes less and less well.

I know that some people found the backwards chronology confusing; I personally didn't find it confusing and thought it was quite effective for the above-mentioned reason. I am a person who can get distracted if timelines don't make sense, but having the actual date and the "days since the accident" spelled out at the beginning of each chapter was a good amount of information, and I only noticed one timeline error in the book. I didn't feel like I was missing things in the beginning of the story - I'm sure if I went back to re-read it, I would catch more things the second time, but tbh I probably won't because it was quite sad!

The plot of A Year to the Day isn't anything revolutionary

(I predicted the end twist that Leo was actually the one driving pretty early on - at the beginning I thought it was either that or she and East were hooking up behind Nina's back, but by halfway through I was pretty sure the Leo driving reveal was what was coming.)

but the way that Benway brings you into the world of the characters and shows you their emotions is really well done. Leo's grief is so potent, but she's also so aware of how her reactions and emotions are viewed by the adults in her life; we also see the variety of ways that the other people in her life grieve Nina: her mom's depression, her dad's better-masked sadness, East's torment from remembering that evening, even though he already lost his mom when he was young. For a story like this, I think the backwards chronology is the key to it hitting you right in the gut; instead of the reader's experience ending at a place of closure, or at least more healing, the story ends when the grief is freshest and rawest. I cried through the last several days/sections.

(And then cried more in the last section, when Nina crawled into Leo's bed and begged her for five more minutes.)

This isn't the kind of book I normally pick up - I read it because I had recently purchased it for my library after a student requested "books that will make me cry." This definitely fits the bill - it's not doing anything new, but it's a nuanced, realistic portrait of grief that will deliver the tears if that's what you're looking for. A small amount of cursing and a few scenes of underage drinking make this one appropriate for high schoolers or older middle schoolers, as long as they are able to handle the heavy topics of grief and death.