The Rest of Her Life by Laura Moriarty

After just reading Defending Jacob, I was not sure I was up for another novel about a young teen whose life is changed forever because they are responsible for taking another's life. In this case, it was an accident (Kara, the high school senior) hits a classmate while driving her mom's SUV.  She was on the phone, fooling around with her friend and just careless. And she knows it and her guilt is overwhelming.
What this book is really about, however, is the relationship between Kara and her mom, Leigh, who has had a pretty awful childhood, but is now married with two children. Her own mother was not really much of a mother and abandoned Leigh while she was still in high school; Leigh had to survive on her own. And she did, but not without consequence. How Leigh and Kara begin to communicate and develop an understanding is the real crux of the book. Kara says to her mom, "....you don't like me." This confrontation between mother and daughter is pretty powerful stuff.
Kara actually tells her mother that she (Leigh) has been nicer to her since the accident happened. "You should have told me this was all it would take for you to like me. I would have just killed someone a long time ago." A little dramatic - yes - but this confrontation wakes Leigh up to how her own childhood has caused her to build a shell around herself
In the end, I liked this book more than Defending Jacob for the characterizations and psychological aspect of how the "murder" impacted the family.