“But what I wanted back had never really been there. He was a temporary illusion, a mirage of water after walking in the desert. I had made him up. And he could have killed me. You've got to stop the ride sometimes. Stop it and get off.”

American writer of young adult and adult fiction

Deb Caletti is an American writer of young adult and adult fiction. She has been a National Book Award finalist and a Michael L. Printz Honor Book medalist, and her work has also received several other awards. Her novels often draw on the Pacific Northwest, and her young adult fiction is noted for taking on difficult subjects usually associated with adult literature. Her first adult novel, "He's Gone," was published in 2013, and she has since written more books for adult readers as well as many titles for teens.