***ALMOST SPOILER ALERT*** 
 MY LIFE AFTER NOW is young adult fiction, specifically realistic fiction dealing with a serious issue in a teenage girl's life. This is not a thriller, so my review is not really spoiling anything big by telling you WHAT issue the main character is facing in this book. That said, the description of MY LIFE AFTER NOW that is provided on most of the sites I frequent actually does not make any mention whatsoever of the specific topic of this novel. While most reviews and blogger descriptions I've seen DO detail character Lucy's particular issue, I can appreciate that some readers will want to be totally surprised, going along with the journey from the perspective of someone who is seeing everything with fresh eyes. That said, if you want to be 100% completely unspoiled about the topic matter of this novel, please do NOT read my review until you have finished the book. 
 That said... 
 I feel like I've completely hit the jackpot this month, finding two new favorite books -- first in POSITIVELY by Courtney Sheinmel, and second with this gem, MY LIFE AFTER NOW by Jessica Verdi. I actually had no idea what this particular book was all about, so it was entirely a coincidence that I ended up reading two novels almost back to back that dealt with the same subject matter. They were both magnificently written, although each took a different perspective on the subject matter. 
 While Emerson was actually born with HIV in Sheinmel's book, our character Lucy from MY LIFE AFTER NOW actually acquires the disease in her late teens as a direct result of her own actions. An aspiring actress, Lucy is on top of the world at her high school, sporting the perfect boyfriend and the top roles in each of the massive productions by her accomplished drama department. Feeling that nothing could ever go wrong, Lucy is unprepared to deal with her life when everything slowly begins crumbling around her -- beginning with an unexpected breakup with her boyfriend, an unfortunate fall from grace in the drama department, and another emotional disruption from her absentee birth mother who gave up Lucy immediately after pregnancy, deciding she just wasn't interested in mothering a child. 
 In a moment of drunken confusion, Lucy makes a hasty decision that will ultimately change the course of her life forever, in ways that she never could have imagined. And although Lucy's own actions directly led to her contraction of HIV, she is a typical studious teenage girl who has her head on straight and her dreams directly in sight at all times. In other words, she is not a girl who engages in promiscuous sexual activity or who casually uses drugs on a regular basis. No, Lucy is a girl who has had a serious boyfriend, who happened to be her first sexual partner, and who is heavily devoted to her family and her studies -- a girl who let her emotions get out of control for only a few months, which was all it took to make the fateful decision that enabled her to contract HIV. 
 MY LIFE AFTER NOW is compulsively readable, as Verdi has a poetic writing style that is beautiful and intense without feeling too dramatic or overdone. Lucy is a highly likeable character, which makes her very easily relateable, helping to convey a potentially eye opening message to readers about the fear and judgment that typically surrounds HIV and AIDS. 
 I very much adored everything about MY LIFE AFTER NOW and I am certainly adding it to my list of favorite books. If you are interested in highly engaging, realistic young adult fiction dealing with the topic of HIV/AIDS, I definitely urge you to check out MY LIFE AFTER NOW as well as POSITIVELY. 
 I am very impressed with author Jessica Verdi and can't wait to see what she comes up with next!