Departures

“An absorbing, taut coming-of-age tale that grapples intelligently with mortality and liberty.”

—Kirkus Reviews

 

Tonight, seventeen-year-old Evalee is scheduled to die.

She’s planned her celebration for weeks, and other than leaving her sister Gracelyn behind, she’s ready. The Directorate says this is how it should be, and she trusts them, as all its citizens do. So tonight she dresses up, she has a party, and she dances. Then she goes to sleep for the last time … except, the next morning, Evalee wakes up.

Gracelyn is a model Directorate citizen with a prodigious future ahead. If she could only stop thinking about the shuffling from Evalee’s room on her departure morning. Even wondering if something went wrong is treasonous enough to ruin her. If she pulls at the thread, the entire careful life the Directorate set for her could unravel into chaos.

Swept away by rebels, Evalee must navigate a future she didn’t count on in a new, untidy world. As the Directorate’s lies are stripped away, she becomes determined to break Gracelyn free from its grasp—before Gracelyn’s search for the truth proves her to be more unruly than she’s worth to the Directorate.

 

★★★★★

“Equal parts page-turning and thought-provoking, Departures is fantastic. It’s grounded in the best kind of world-building—the kind that delights and disturbs and allows us to see our own world with brand new eyes.” 

Lance Rubin, New York Times Bestselling Author
of Denton Little’s Deathdate and Crying Laughing

"Departures is a beautifully written, well-paced novel of two sisters’ parallel paths of discovery of the tangle of lies woven by the Directorate..."

— Jade Kerrion, USA Today Bestselling Author

“Unputdownable from the very first page.”

—Natalie Cammaratta, Author of Falling & Uprising

“Wenstrom's masterful storytelling is on full display with rising stakes, tense twists, and emotional resonance.”

—Megan Lynch, Award-Winning Author