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Gayle Forman was born in Los Angeles in 1970, and began her writing career as a journalist. She wrote for Seventeen, and has had articles in many publications since.

After a trip around the world she wrote her first book, “You can’t get there from here: a year on the fringes of a shrinking world,” published in 2005.

In 2009 she wrote “If I stay,” which was later made into a movie. Her books are for the young adult audience, usually due to realistic subject matter dealing with serious life problems. She has written 14 books.

In 2024, she wrote “Not Nothing.”

Alex, the main character, is 12. His mother, suffering with an unspecified mental health condition and incapable of caring for him or herself, disappeared over a year ago. After some troubles in the foster care system, Alex was placed with an aunt and uncle who don’t really want him. After some remarks at school, Alex exploded and lost his temper with another boy, seriously injuring him.

He was sent to a judge and was told he would have to volunteer for the summer and then have a hearing, to possibly keep him out of the juvenile justice system. He is assigned to the Shady Glen Senior Living Center, where a young girl around his own age, Maya-Jade, is put in charge of assigning him duties.

She is forced to be there for the summer as well, due to a different sort of trouble at home. Her grandmother lives at Shady Glen, and she knows and loves most of the residents. She gives Alex all the most horrible duties she can think of, as they got off to a rocky start.

One day, Shady Glen needs someone to deliver meals, and Alex finds out he is good at it, having brief but meaningful exchanges with the residents he thought initially were “zombies.”

One day, he meets Josey, age 107, and bumps a painting on his wall by accident. Josey begins talking about the woman in the painting and his life. He is a Holocaust survivor.

Josey is lonely, and just waiting to die, never talking, but Alex sparks something in him. Maya-Jade was planning on making a video project getting residents to talk about their lives, and she cannot believe that Alex got Josey to talk. Maya-Jade has a Jewish mother, and is anxious to hear Josey’s stories.

It all comes to a head when Alex realizes that his terrible secret — the beating — will likely come out, and he may lose his new friends at Shady Glen if they find out what he did. He was hoping for help from Josey and Maya-Jade to write to the judge at the end of the summer, but how will he ever be able to ask them now? 

Frank, Alex’s social worker, comes to the rescue because he also has been through similar trials, and was saved by the care and love of friends. He shepherds Alex back to Shady Glen, where Josey tells him what needs to be done: letters of apology to all those he has hurt: his victim Toby, Maya-Jade, his aunt and uncle, and a letter to the judge. Josey steps up when he dictates a letter to the judge supporting Alex, probably his last act before dying.

This deeply meaningful intergenerational saga is told by Alex and Josey alternately.