Welcome to Cover Story, a feature in which plots are imagined based solely on the cover -- with a #YASummerShowdown mashup twist!
More Than This Is What Happy Looks Like: A Cover Story by the FYA Free Agents (#FYAFreeAgents)
Ellie O’Neill is just a small-town girl living her life in Maine, when she gets an email from teen heartthrob Seth Wearing about taking care of his pet pig. It’s an honest mistake as Ellie’s email address is very similar to the pig sitter’s email address. At first Seth and Ellie exchange emails with Ellie being none-the-wiser about Seth’s true identity. But then Seth’s new movie is looking for the perfect ocean-town location, and he suggests Ellie’s town. When Ellie learns the truth about who she has been emailing (and falling in love) with, she’s scared. She has a secret, and she doesn’t want it exposed when the paparazzi start to follow them. She pushes Seth away, hoping to keep her secret safe, and that’s when he vanishes.
The last thing Seth remembers is sitting on the beach alone, but now he’s in the small English town he grew up in, and it seems to be abandoned. Why is he here? Where did everyone go? What happened to Ellie? Seth concludes he must be dead, but then he sees a van driving around town. Eager to have some answers, he chases after it, but is thwarted by Regine and Tomasz who pull him away into an alcove to hide. This is where they share their theory with him: everyone lives their lives online now, with their bodies kept alive through tubes and machines. The three of them have become disconnected from this altered reality.
Now Seth must race to find the truth as well as a way home. But can he go back, knowing what he does? And will Ellie even want to be with him if he makes it back? If he gets back there, will he have a happy ending?
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