Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

Chasing Brooklyn is the story of Brooklyn and Nico, two people overcoming the grief of losing a loved one. Lucca was Nico brother and Brooklyn long time boyfriend and an all around great guy that came to a sudden and early demise in a terrible car accident in which his best friend Gabe was driving and survived. In the beginning of the book it is the one year anniversary of Lucca's death, and everyone is taking it quite hard, especially Gabe who was found at home after having over-dosed and now is gone also. Brooklyn is closing down and Nico sees her but doesn't know what to do because it's even harder on him since his parents still haven't moved on with the death of their son either. Suddenly, a whole year after his death, Lucca begins to show up in the dreams of his brother and eventually makes himself present when Nico is away too. His message to Nico... "Help Brooklyn". How? What's wrong with her? She won't talk to him so how is he supposed to know how to help? Will Nico help break down Brooklyn's walls and help her to live again or will the walls that are coming down on him keep them apart?

Chasing Brooklyn is an absolutely beautiful book written in verse as a daily journal of two people dealing with grief and loss. There are so many facets to their lives and relationships with all of the people around them and Schroeder does a great job of showing the feeling and the haze that falls upon them as they are grieving and trying to break through. Living with nightmares and trying to run away from reality is pretty much defining Brooklyn and Nico, fear of living lives again because the person they each loved more than anything no longer has life.

This book is not action packed, it is just a simple and beautifully written look at human emotion and healing and Schroeder did a fantastic job at hitting those emotions straight to the readers heart with the style she writes in. I've never read a book this long written in verse and on top of that it kept me spellbound from beginning to end.