Chemical Hearts

CHAPTER 1
 
I ALWAYS THOUGHT the moment you met the great love of your life would be more like the movies. Not exactly like the movies, obviously, with the slow-mo and the hair blowing in the breeze and the swelling instrumental soundtrack. But I at least thought there would be something, you know? A skipped beat of the heart. A tug at your soul where something inside you goes, Holy shit. There she is. Finally, after all this time, there she is.

There was none of that when Grace Town walked into Mrs. Beady s afternoon drama class ten minutes late on the second Tuesday of senior year. Grace was the type of person who made an impression on any room she walked into, but not for the kind of reasons that generate instant and undying affection. She was of average height and average build and average attractiveness, all things that should ve made it easy for her to assimilate into a new high school without any of the dramatic tropes that usually inhabit such storylines.

But three things about Grace immediately stood out, before her ordinariness could save her:
 
1. Grace was dressed head to toe in guys clothing. Not the tomboy, skater-girl kind of look, either, but legitimate dudes clothing that was way too big for her. Jeans that were meant to be skinny were held on her hips by a belt. Despite it being only mid-September, she wore a sweater and a checkered shirt and a knit cap, and a long leather necklace with an anchor on the end.

2. Grace looked unclean and unhealthy. I mean, I d seen junkies that looked in better shape than she did that morning. (I hadn t really seen that many junkies, but I d seen The Wire and Breaking Bad, which totally counts.) Her blond hair wasn t brushed and was badly cut, her skin was sallow, and I m almost certain if I d smelled her at any point during that day, she would ve reeked.

3. If all this wasn t enough to really screw over her chances of fitting in at a new high school, Grace

Krystal Sutherland's first novel, Our Chemical Hearts, was published in over twenty countries and made the American Booksellers Association's Indie Next List in 2016. The film adaptation, Chemical Hearts (2020), was produced by Amazon Studios and stars Lili Reinhart (Riverdale) and Austin Abrams (Dash & Lily). Sutherland served as an executive producer on the project. Her second novel, A Semi-Definitive List of Worst Nightmares, was published in 2017 and has been optioned for adaptation by Yellow Bird. Originally from Australia, she has lived on four continents and currently calls London home