When Taylor Lamington finds a cryptic note from her dead brother in the form of an equation: “Beauty + Goodness = Truth,” she sets out to decipher what his mysterious last words mean. She’s a whip smart, irreverent, and soulful high school freshman when the suicide of beloved twenty-one year old Alex sends her family into a tailspin of grief. Her other brother launches on a hard, fast path to juvenile delinquency, her older sister forces as much distance from the family as she can, and her baby sister starts wetting herself at night. Taylor’s parents are a mess too. Her catatonic mother won’t get out of bed and her father prowls around the house day and night in a drunken stupor. They all long to know: Why did he do it? Taylor’s a math whiz – she likes to solve problems – and in a determined effort to heal her family, she uses her talent to start putting together clues, paying attention to odd characters in her hometown, and scrutinizing her fractured family. She makes unexpected new friends along the way who help her discover not only the true meaning of her brother’s last words, but also a deeper meaning of her own life. Through her quirky but determined sleuthing, "Solving for X" becomes a mystery tunneling through Taylor’s shell-shocked family’s grief and her own urgent desire for a meaningful and happy life.