Out of Step, into You

Gr 9 Up–Back when they were in middle school, Taylor and Marianna were best friends, practically sisters, who did everything together, including cross-country running. But when they found out Marianna would be moving to a different high school and joining a rival cross-country team, Taylor stopped speaking to her, and their friendship became a rivalry. Three years later, Marianna finds out her family will be moving back to her old town, and that the former rivals will now be teammates. Meanwhile, both girls are facing their own set of challenges that they have been keeping from each other. As the oldest daughter of a single mother, Marianna sometimes resents all the added responsibility that comes with having to care for her two younger siblings while juggling school, cross country, and a part-time job. Taylor feels added pressure to succeed at everything, including cross country, to make her father, a former Olympian now struggling with kidney failure, proud. Taylor and Marianna must set aside their differences and perhaps rekindle a friendship that had once seemed on the verge of blossoming into romance. Both Taylor and Marianna are well-drawn characters leading complex, multilayered lives, and facing a lot of coming-of-age challenges that many teens will relate to.