Heaven Has No Regrets

By Tessa Shaffer

Book Overview

In this award-winning true story, teenage characters move through the first days of grief as they plan for the unexpected funeral of a close friend while searching for what they believe happened, who's to blame, and if Heaven does exist.

An artistic coming-of-age story that portrays the way grief coats everything to blur reality's measure of time causing the ultimate confusion and becoming a quicksand to moving through life after a loved one's death.

Makenzie's a rebellious teenager who just wants to be loved and live somewhere she belongs, and her cousin-best-friend, Faith...well, Faith's just trying to live. Family secrets and absent parents bond the two forever, but forever isn't as long as it should be when sickness sets in and time becomes its own disease. The sudden death spirals a group of friends to come together to prepare for a funeral through an unreliable narrator as the reader alternates between dual POV flashbacks of Faith and Makenzie's own stories.

Trigger Warning: Death, grief, suicide, car accidents, blood, eating disorder.

Writer's Statement:
I wanted the book and film to convey the abrupt feelings of death and grief repeatedly. For the book, this is delivered with unique formatting some have compared to poetry and avid readers have found frustrating. It's meant to make the reader feel like they have to keep starting over, again, and again, because that's how losing a loved one feels. Jolting. And eventually, you get used to the new, unfamiliar, and sometimes hated rhythm of that being just the way things are. For the film, we've captured the awkwardness of grieving in delivering the questions behind the questions, the characters not having names, and un-fluid timelines.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 150248661X
• ISBN13: 9781502486615
• Release Date: October 2014
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 276 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.1" x 9.2"