Marissa Dike

The Sky Looked the Same Marissa Dike

What is one year of human life worth?



In the not-so-distant future, criminals are no longer given lengthy prison sentences. Instead, they must surrender years of their lives by subjecting themselves to an artificial aging medical procedure that leaves them older, broken, and despondent. Sixteen-year-old Mia suddenly finds herself convicted of a horrific crime, and she knows that her life will be cut drastically short. Having always wanted to be a writer and knowing that she will never get the chance to be one, she begins to urgently document everything in a journal, hoping that someone will find it someday and give her life just a little bit of purpose. As she fills the pages with a combination of profound observations and dull everyday minutiae, Mia begins to slowly accept the person that she has both become and been turned into, finding beauty in unlikely places and ultimately realizing that she simply wants what everybody wants: to figure out what humans--and life itself--are really made of.