Retrieved From: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/noresults/9781476729718

Jodi Picoult is an amazing author. She puts out numerous pieces on devastating topics or ones that are hard to digest. For me this book hit every note, but I wasn’t a big fan of the ending. I just think I cared too much about some of the characters. The one thing that always makes Jodi Picoult such a good author, is the way she can fluctuate between each character’s perspective and still make the storyline cohesive.

I have yet to meet someone who is not a fan of Jodi Picoult books. Her topics are everything I want to cover as an aspiring author and keep it as real and honest as she does at all.

Reviews:

Many people on GoodReads leave highly rated reviews. Here are what some people have said about this novel:

  • I haven’t read a book affected me so deeply, shook me to the core, made me scream! The high tension story telling of school shootings, the earth shattering, soul shaking events aftermath the tragedy, all those young people’s intense traumas, thought provoking perspectives, shocking revelations! 
  • This was an incredible book! I was so engrossed in it and the ending..Oh my! I absolutely find this book devastating and fascinating. This is easily my new favorite Jodi Picoult book. It is sad and eye opening on the truth and expanse of bullying. Once again Picoult weaves in a story of more controversial topics and slays it. 
  • Wow! This book really makes you think!! I suggest it to everyone!
  • Exceptionally written novel that shows us what’s in the mind of a fictional school shooter, what led him to commit the crime, and how his actions affect the lives of his family and friends. Picoult is a master at character development.

Although most of them are positive reviews, there are also some extremely ones:

  • This is what I have come to understand about Jodi Picoult. She takes a controversial or emotionally-charged topic. School shootings. Childhood leukemia. Amish people. Then she centers that topic around terribly cliched characters and cranks the schmaltz meter to 11.
  • Is there a shelf for a book I have to stop reading because I can’t stand something about it? In this case, that the writer is a machine that swallows magazines whole and spews out a topic of the month.
  • I’ve only read a couple of Picoult’s books, and quite frankly didn’t like them. I decided to read this one as I have a bit of a strange fascination with the incidences of school shootings, and although I wasn’t expecting anything great my lowered expectations still didn’t elevate my opinion of this novel.
  • You know what I HATE about Jodi Picoult? She always has a FANTASTIC plot idea, and then screws the whole thing up by tying everything up with a freaking pretty bow for the last 20 pages of the book.

It’s very obvious that the reviews for this novel are extremely mixed. There are some reviews that strictly bash Jodi Picoult instead of the novel itself, but each to their own.

Columbine:

Like previously mentioned, Picoult did a lot of information hunting before writing this novel. She investigated the Columbine shooting and reached out to parents as a means of understanding the problem as much as she could.

Columbine was one of the first school shooting massacres that devastated the world. There are still terrifying and shocking videos of the two kids in the cafeteria that circle the web from the day of the shooting. To read more about Columbine in depth, you can visit Columbine High School Shooting on the History webpage.

Here are some facts that I can give. It happened on April 20th, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. Two kids, Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, sadly murdered 13 children and wounded 20 other individuals. During the 10 year anniversary of the tragic event, several parents spoke out to honor the fallen and some parents even created TED talks to others who have faced similar events on how to cope.

School Shootings:

This country has a serious problem when it comes to school shootings, and mass shootings in general. Over quarantine in 2020, it was the only year where school shootings did not happen.

CNN created an amazing article about the cold hearted facts and numbers of school shootings over the years. Their headline was “10 Years, 180 School Shootings, 356 Victims.” Some people like to argue that over ten years, that really isn’t that big of a number, but it indeed is. CNN’s article provides detailed graphs and statistics to better read and understand what has truly happened in the last ten years. They report that, “More school shootings happen on Friday and during the afternoon.” Again this is an intelligently written article from CNN that provides easy to read information.

One of the biggest reasons why some schools are targeted are because they are an EASY target. Teachers and other members within a school are not allowed to carry a concealed weapon, nor any weapon for that matter onto the premises. This allows some attackers to understand that a school is a weak spot. During my debate class, this topic was very heavy. Should a teacher be able to bring a concealed weapon to school if they have a license to carry? Now I’m not going to answer that for you, but otherwise think of it as food for thought.

Gun control is a prevalent concern throughout the past years. There have been several authors to write about it and it always seems to be thrown into some political debate. However, I think everyone needs to consider the damage that has happened over the last ten years according to CNN.

Final Thoughts:

For me personally, I enjoyed this book. I love that Jodi switches perspectives in her novels because it allows the reader to become more invested in each character. Even though some other readers may disagree, I thought it was a very powerful piece.