Twenty-Four Seconds from Now...

Twenty-four seconds from now, Neon and his girlfriend of two years, Aria, are about to have sex for the first time — if he can get out of his own head, and her bathroom, long enough to go through with it.

Told in reverse chronological order across intervals of twenty-four (seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months), the story unwinds through a cemetery visit with his grandmother, a frank breakfast-table conversation with his mother about sex and consent, and all the way back to the day fifteen-year-old Neon first met Aria at his grandfather's funeral.

Jason Reynolds tells a tender, structurally inventive YA love story moving backward through the small moments that build up to a big one.