[[quoteright:268:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/whathappenedtolanigarver.jpg]]
''What Happened to Lani Garver'' is a 2002 young adult novel by Carol Plum-Ucci.

Claire [=McKenzie=] is a high schooler living on Hackett, an island off the coast of the northeastern United States. She befriends Lani, a mysterious NewTransferStudent who is despised by the popular kids, including Claire's other friends.
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!!''What Happened to Lani Garver'' contains examples of:
* TheAlcoholic: Claire had leukemia in junior high, and during that time her mom started drinking heavily. Now she gets blackout drunk almost every night.
* AmbiguousGenderIdentity: Early in the book, Macy asks Lani if he's a girl. He answers, "Oh! No. Not a girl. Sorry." After that Claire thinks of him as a boy, but she notes that he never actually said he was a boy.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Everyone assumes Lani is gay because of his effeminate appearance and behavior, but he refuses to identify as gay, straight, or bisexual because he doesn't want to be put in a box. Claire never sees him show romantic interest in anyone.
* BathroomStallOfOverheardInsults: During Claire's second week of high school, she was in the bathroom and overheard Eli Spellings call her "that leukemia girl" and say, "Remember her from January? She looked like she'd been nuked in a microwave. Was that sickening or what?" Macy Matlock, the popular girl, made Eli apologize to Claire. That's how Macy and Claire became best friends.
* BoomerangBigot: Tony Clementi sexually assaults Lani and makes {{harassing phone call}}s to him, but is loudly homophobic in front of everyone else. He beats up Lani and says it's because Lani came on to him.
* BusesAreForFreaks: Claire's mom believes in this trope so strongly that Claire is forbidden from ever riding a bus.
* CopeByCreating: Ever since Claire started high school, she's been having regular dreams about girls cutting themselves with razors. Claire is horrified but also fascinated by the dreams and secretly writes songs about them. When she tells Lani about it, he tells her that it's probably a good thing because she's using art to work out her frustrations instead of violence, and suggests that dreaming and writing songs about cutting helps her feel in control of her blood.
* DudeLooksLikeALady: Lani has feminine facial features, a girly haircut, and a voice that's barely deep enough to be recognizably male. When he first arrives at school, the other kids can't figure out if he's a boy or a girl.
* ForegoneConclusion: The first chapter says that Lani will be murdered.
* GameOfChicken: Vince and Tony Clementi are always playing these. Tony used to run in front of Vince's car, then run away at the last minute. Then he started waiting for Vince to brake before throwing himself onto the windshield. They also goad their friends into playing, like lowering Phil into the fifty-degree water in a fishing net and seeing if he can last two and a half minutes without chickening out.
* GeniusBookClub: Lani has spent a lot of time in libraries, since the worst bullies don't go in there. He's read Einstein, Marx, Darwin, Freud, and Hegel.
* GilliganCut: Claire's dad gets her an appointment with a psychologist, but Claire doesn't want to go. Lani tries to talk her into going. Claire says, "I'm not seeing any shrink, Lani." The next scene begins with the psychologist introducing himself to Claire.
* GirlPosse: At the beginning of the book, Claire is part of a girl posse consisting of her, Macy, Eli, Myra Whitehall, and Geneva Graham.
* AGlassInTheHand: During lunch, Macy shows Claire a photo that she took of her the day before. Claire remembers that when the picture was taken, she was wondering if her leukemia had returned. The thought makes her squeeze a plastic fork so hard that she cuts her thumb on it, them breaks it.
* HomeschooledKids: Claire was homeschooled during seventh grade and part of eighth grade, when she had leukemia and was going through chemotherapy.
* LaserGuidedKarma: [[spoiler:Lani's murderers avoid being caught, but all of their lives are ruined. Tony, the main instigator of the murder, crashes his truck on purpose because he sees Lani standing in the bed, staring at him in the rearview mirror. He's jailed for nine months for DUI and drug possession and eventually ends up in a mental hospital. Vince is DrivenToSuicide. Phil and Scott both refuse to work on the docks because that's where they drowned Lani, even though it's where the best jobs on Hackett are. They both drop out of high school and get minimum wage jobs. Scott has lost forty pounds. Claire thinks justice has been served.]]
* LiquidCourage: Phil drinks most of a can of beer before getting into the fishing net.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Lani has an old book that describes androgynous beings called floating angels that are sent to help people on earth. He bears a striking resemblance to one of the illustrations. He played a floating angel in a school play in Philadelphia, and when Claire sees him in costume, he seems so beautiful and powerful that she finds it hard to believe he isn't really an angel. Some of his friends from Philadelphia also think he's an angel. Lani refuses to tell Claire whether he's an angel because floating angels are forbidden from identifying themselves. [[spoiler:After his death, two of his murderers claim to be haunted by his ghost, and Claire sometimes sees him in the fog off the pier.]]
* MeaningfulRename: Lani's name was originally spelled Lonny, but he changed it to be more androgynous.
* MilitaryBrat: When Lani was about seven, he was adopted by a military couple through an agency near their base in Texas that specialized in older children.
* NostalgicNarrator: The first chapter is in the present tense and takes place months after Lani's murder. The rest of the book is in the past tense.
* ReallyMovesAround: Lani has moved almost every year since fifth grade because of his dad's job.
* TheRunaway: Lani ran away from the small town where he was previously living and lived on the streets of Philadelphia for two years. During that time he attended Creative and Performing Arts High School of Philadelphia, the first school he attended where he made multiple friends instead of being bullied for being effeminate.
* SchoolyardBullyAllGrownUp: The Clementi brothers' dad was a schoolyard bully and went on to beat his wife and kids. He went on to beat his wife and kids. One night he drunkenly fell off a dock. [[AndThereWasMuchRejoicing His family doesn't miss him.]] Unfortunately his sons, Tony in particular, are as bad as he is.
* SkippingSchool: Claire starts to feel weak and dizzy and worries that her leukemia is coming back. She doesn't want to talk to her mom about it for fear that it'll make her drink more, so Lani talks her into cutting school, taking a bus to Philadelphia, and getting her blood tested at a charity clinic that mostly treats homeless kids. It turns out that her blood is fine, and her problems are caused by excessive dieting.
* TitleDrop: After Lani's murder, Claire takes one of his childhood photos from his mom and puts it in her scrapbook. She writes, "What happened to Lani Garver?"
* VagueAge: Claire suspects that Lani is older than most high schoolers, but he refuses to tell her how old he is because he sees age as just a box. Claire eventually learns that he isn't just being evasive -- he was adopted and doesn't know for sure how old he is.
* WhyCouldntYouBeDifferent: Before Lani's parents got divorced, his dad beat him for playing dress-up. The school board blamed his parents for raising a "gender confused" child, so his dad took him to a drill sergeant, a priest, and a psychologist to try to force him to act more manly.
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