“I love you,” Polly says suddenly when I’m almost to the door. “I know.” I say. Hermione Winters has been a flyer. She’s been captain of her cheerleading team. The envied girlfriend and the undisputed queen of her school. Now it’s her last year and those days and those labels are fading fast. In a few months she’ll be a different person. She thinks she’s ready for whatever comes next. But then someone puts something in her drink at a party, and in an instant she finds herself wearing new labels m ones she never imagined: Victim. Survivor. That raped girl. Even though this was never the future she imagined, one essential thing remains unchanged: Hermione can still call herself Polly Oliver’s best friend, and that may be the truest label of all. Heartbreaking and empowering, Exit, Pursued by a Bear is the story of transcendent friendship in the face of trauma. “I love you,” I say, because I really, really do. “I know,” says Polly.