Two years after losing his parents, high school student Jamal witnessed the terrible death of his ex-best friend Q. However, their story isn’t over. With a secret, experimental technology, Q can be reanimated and brought back to life—but only for a time. Is a few short weeks enough to mend their friendship before the inexorable demise? Early Departures (Forever Ends on Friday in the UK) is as much a chronicle of grief as it is an exploration into the relationships affected by extreme sorrow. Instead of the narrative explicitly mentioning the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), Reynolds takes readers on a journey of the subtleties of emotional turmoil and the realistic applications of each response.