THE SUN IS ALSO A STAR meets JUMANJI when two teens meet and fall in love during a layover-gone-wrong at the Atlanta airport in this thrilling new novel from the author of LET’S GET LOST!
BEFORE TAKEOFF
by Adi Alsaid
Knopf BYR, June 2022
(via Park & Fine)
James and Michelle find themselves in the Atlanta airport on a layover. They couldn’t be more different, but seemingly interminable delays draw them both to a mysterious flashing green light—and each other.
Where James is passive, Michelle is anything but. And she quickly discovers that the flashing green light is actually… a button. Which she presses. Which may or may not unwittingly break the rules of the universe—at least as those rules apply to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta.
Before they can figure up from down, strange, impossible things start happening: snowstorms form inside the B terminal; jungles sprout up in the C terminal; and earthquakes split the ground apart in between. And no matter how hard they try, it seems no one can find a way in or out of the airport. James and Michelle team up to find their families and either escape the airport, or put an end to its chaos—before it’s too late.
Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, where he spilled hot sauce on things. Along with writing and traveling the world, Adi has coached high school and elementary school basketball. In addition to Mexico, he has lived in Tel Aviv, Las Vegas, Monterey and Chicago. His previous YA books include Let’s Get Lost, Never Always Sometimes, North of Happy, Brief Chronicle of Another Stupid Heartbreak, and We Didn’t Ask for This.
The year is 3070, and Marie Antoinette has just arrived at Versailles. Marie is an App sensation, a style icon and a maven of social influence with millions of followers—but here, in the glamorous Franc Kingdom, her job is simply to marry Louis August. Unfortunately, Louis doesn’t seem interested in Marie, making her feel lonelier than ever in this new country. Luckily, Marie has a distraction: opulent soirées and decadent after-parties abound in Versailles.
It’s fourteen-year-old Gabe Sweeney’s day to check for survivors . . . Two years after a global pandemic, twenty survivors (most of them children) have relocated from their coastal Maine island full of sad memories to a mansion on a small, neighboring island where they have school and farm chores. When Gabe and his dog, Mud, find Relle Douglas alone in the woods on the mainland, they take the strange new girl across the channel to live with them. Relle changes the island with her hopeful attitude. She tells big stories and makes plans for activities like talent shows. Despite a growing crush, Gabe doesn’t quite understand the point of it all; why have a talent show at the end of the world? But when tragedy strikes, Gabe sets out on a dangerous journey to try and find other survivors where the world might be normal. Like Before. 
Ellie McFadden has intuitive gifts. She can sense what other living things are feeling. She can even talk to animals! Too bad she can’t connect with her twin sister, Parker. Parker McFadden has kinetic gifts. She can cause shocks to the earth and produce heat energy that explodes from her body like fire, especially when she is angry. The sisters aren’t aware of the legacy they inherited from their mother until, on their thirteenth birthday, two mysterious relatives on the Power side whisk them off to an isolated sanctuary called Haven. Ellie immediately adapts to their new routine, but Parker has one impulse: to get back to her normal life of friends and sports, fast.
When Doctor Frances Ai’s younger sister Maura died in a tragic accident six months ago, Frances swore she would bring her back to life. However, the creature that rises from the slab is clearly not Maura. This girl, who chooses the name “M,” doesn’t remember anything about Maura’s life and just wants to be her own person. However, Frances expects M to pursue the same path that Maura had been on—applying to college to become a scientist—and continue the plans she and Maura shared. Hoping to trigger Maura’s memories, Frances surrounds M with the trappings of Maura’s past, but M wants nothing to do with Frances’ attempts to change her into something she’s not.