I went into this book with a certain amount of trepidation as I made the mistake of reading the reviews before I started and there were quite a few terrible reviews. But I’d already checked the book out of the virtual library and it was less than 300 pages, so I figured I might as well give it a go. The average Goodreads rating was 3.63 so there must have been some good to balance out the bad, surely?

And actually, I was pleasantly surprised. I found the book thrilling and compulsive, I couldn’t stop reading once I’d started. I’m not sure if my impression of the book is affected by the bad reviews though, maybe I think I like it more than I did because I was expecting it to be so bad?

I’ve never really read any books based around school shootings before, and only really heard about them distantly on the news as something that happens in America but not really over here in the UK. So I think the author did a really good job of conveying the terror and confusion of what happens in that situation, but I’m definitely not an expert.

What I did find most compelling was the relationship between the characters we hear from. Having so many different perspectives was a great way to keep the storyline moving and exciting, and the fact that we learn more and more about how all these character’s lives intertwine was a big reason I wanted to keep reading.

The book was clearly aimed at young adult audiences – although it’s a hard topic to deal with, I feel like the book would have had more tension if it had been written for an older audience, but it was great nonetheless.