The Little Things That Kill

Kirkus Reviews' Best Books of 2025

★★★★★ "YES, must read!"

She thought dying would be the end. Turns out, it's just the beginning.

Sixteen-year-old Nicole Benson wakes up on a floating platform surrounded by dead kids... only she doesn't remember dying.

Everyone insists she killed herself, but Nicole knows that's not true.

Now trapped in Substation Fifteen-the special afterlife realm for teens who ended their own lives-she's got just thirty days to uncover the facts and piece together what happened. If she fails, her next stop could be really be the end.

But the truth is a tangled mess of secrets, lies, and betrayals. If Nicole's not strong enough, the facts she finds might be harder to accept than death itself.

For fans of Before I Fall, We Were Liars, and A Good Girl's Guide to Murder comes a haunting and heartfelt YA paranormal mystery about friendship, forgiveness, and the destructive lies we tell ourselves-even after death.

SYNOPSIS:

True friendship is put to the test when Nicole's untimely death leads to more questions than answers.

Sixteen-year-old Nicole already had enough on her plate between distancing herself from her embarrassingly witchy bestie Isabel and competing with her don't-mess-with-me romantic rival Cassie, who happens to be dating Nicole's crush.

Now Nicole is dead.

This comes as a shock when she wakes up and finds herself on Substation Fifteen, an afterlife realm. They say it was suicide. Nicole has zero memory of dying, but she's convinced she didn't take her own life and doesn't belong there.

Her only path to uncovering the truth is a fact-finding trip through a minefield of secrets and lies, beginning at her own funeral. But how can she communicate from beyond the grave with the two girls who know much more about Nicole's Last Day than they're willing to admit? Nicole better learn quickly because she has just thirty days to learn what really happened, otherwise she won't be moving on to her next destination.

Ultimately, the facts Nicole finds may be harder to piece together and accept than death itself.

A story of family, friendship, loss, and redemption, The Little Things That Kill exposes the impact of the small choices we make every day in our lives (and afterlives).