They say it was suicide, but Nicole knows damn well she didn’t kill herself and won’t take this lying down.

16-year-old Nicole, high school drama queen (onstage and off), wakes up and finds herself on Substation Fifteen, a special plane of existence for teenage suicides, where she must accept the fact that she is now, quite literally, a No Body. Nicole has zero memory of dying but she’s convinced she didn’t take her own life and doesn’t belong here. She accuses the Mentors who run this place of screwing up big time, but they’re not buying it. In thirty days Nicole must pass the all-important Evaluation by accepting that the choices she made led to her demise. What happens if she doesn’t pass? She may be on her way to a place much worse than Substation 15.

Nicole’s only path to uncovering the truth about what happened is a fact-finding trip to Earth, through a minefield of secrets and lies, beginning at her own funeral. The clock is ticking while she tries to figure out a way to communicate with her two close friends—Isabel, her witchy bestie, and Cassie, her romantic rival. Both girls know much more about Nicole’s Last Day than they’re willing to admit. Ultimately, the facts Nicole finds may be harder to piece together and accept than death itself.

‘The Little Things that Kill’ is the debut novel from the pen of San Francisco-based author, Annie Fox. We see the action from the perspectives of Nicole, Isabel and Cassie in the first person.

Nicole wakes up in a strange place, recalling nothing from the night before. Far from being at home in bed in her home town of Veraz, she discovers that she is, in fact, dead and now classified as a ‘no body,’ with her human form being created by an avatar. She is deemed to have committed suicide and must remember the circumstances which led to this event to pass a time-limited evaluation. Having no memory of the events leading up to her death, Nicole must discover the truth with help from the psychically-gifted Isabel. If she cannot unravel the mystery surrounding her final moments, she will be doomed to an undisclosed future on Substation Sixteen.

The three main characters are well-defined and each has their own distinct personality. The story relies heavily on foreshadowing with a strong suggestion that the reason for Nicole’s death is bound up with her thinly-disguised attraction to Cassie’s boyfriend, Alex, but is that the whole story? The author explores a myriad of themes and emotions including: anguish, sorrow, jealousy, frustration, fear, guilt, rivalry, recrimination, redemption, loss, loyalty and love.

We are fed breadcrumbs as Nicole pieces together the information she needs to understand how and why she died. During this process, she is also forced to face some ugly truths about her own character and behaviour. Using humour and pathos, Annie Fox leads her audience through the last tragic hours of the life of sixteen-year-old Nicole Sondra Benson to a fitting conclusion.

I have reviewed many YA stories and as I’m not in the target audience range, I normally attempt to do this objectively. However, this book was not only easy to read, I found myself fully engaged with the plot and cared about the outcome. I congratulate the author on her use of colourful imagery to help create a well-written, flowing tale and have no hesitation in awarding a full five stars.

Annie Fox is an educator who teaches kids to get along better with themselves and everyone else. Biggest claim to fame – Since 1997 she’s answered more than 60K teen questions online and at live events throughout the U.S., as well as in Italy, Germany, Thailand, Singapore, and Japan. Most help requests she receives come from 12-17 year-old girls looking for a fix for a friendship/romance gone terribly wrong.