Review: That Night - Amy Giles

Review: That Night - Amy Giles - October 2018

There's something about young adult fiction that doesn't shy away from the hard stuff that always draws me in. Give me a story that tackles grief, trauma, or those impossible questions we all wrestle with, and I'm there. That Night by Amy Giles landed on my radar because it does exactly that, it sits with the uncomfortable reality of mass shootings and asks: what comes after?

The story follows Jess and Lucas, two teenagers forever changed by the Balcony shooting in their Queens neighborhood. Both lost siblings that night. Both survived when others didn't. And both are drowning in the aftermath in their own ways , Jess trying to hold her depressed mother together while her own grief threatens to swallow her whole, and Lucas channeling everything into boxing while his parents hover, terrified of losing him too.

When they end up working together at Bruno's Hardware, something shifts. Their shared trauma becomes a bridge rather than a wall, and what begins as tentative friendship slowly blooms into something deeper. Watching them navigate healing together, learning that it's okay to smile again, to feel joy again, to fall in love again that's where Amy Giles's story truly shines.

The romance feels genuine and earned, which isn't always easy when you're writing characters carrying this much weight. Jess and Lucas don't fix each other—they're both still broken in places, still figuring things out but they create space for each other to be messy and human and hurt. That felt real to me.

Where the book sometimes stumbled for me was in the pacing. There were moments that felt rushed when I wanted to linger, and others that dragged when I was eager to see what happened next. The dual perspective works well enough, though I found myself more drawn to Jess's chapters than Lucas's.

Still, That Night handles its heavy subject matter with sensitivity and heart. It doesn't offer easy answers because there aren't any. Instead, it sits with the messy, complicated truth that healing isn't linear, that survivor's guilt is real, and that learning to live again after tragedy is one of the bravest things a person can do.

This book won't be for everyone as it's heavy, sometimes heartbreaking but if you're drawn to stories that explore the resilience of the human spirit, That Night is worth your time.

Amazon: https://amzn.to/4qr58g4