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 r...

Review: The Silent Friend - Diane Jeffrey - November 2020 This book drew me in with the cover of the two women, despite how many times I try not to be a cover judger - I really do get drawn in by beautiful covers and sometimes the books are duds, or other times like The Silent Friend, they are a good read. This book starts with four friends who are librarians which I loved and they all love the same music. They decide to plan a trip to Lyon, France to see the sights and listen to their favorite Irish band play in concert. However, the trip will be one that Laura will never forget, and in a bad way too as that one night changed her forever. On the night of the concert, the hall was stormed by four terrorists who decided to shoot up the event. Laura and one of her other friends survived, the other two died. Laura always wonders why she managed to survive when her best friends didn't. To try and move on, Laura finds a message board that has posts of other victims and family members ...

Review: What I Did - Kayla Krantz - June 2020 I was attracted to this book first from the cover, it is so creepy that it's awesome - the only downside is that the title and author's name are a bit harder to read. The other thing that drew me to this book was the fact that I love murder mysteries and with the main character being a teenager, I was hooked. This book introduces us to Jessica who on the outside looks like your average all-American girl - blonde, pretty but on the inside she is different. You could call her a sociopath - as her personality reminded me strongly of Dexter from the Jeff Lindsey series. Jessica works at a local grocery shop and has a stalker in Samuel and her best friend at work is Oscar. Lately, Oscar has seemed a bit off and I have to admit when the incident happens, I did see it coming as you just know. When Jess kills Oscar saving others, she is praised as a hero but Samuel isn't going to let it go as once, she rejected him, he wants to expos...

Review: Beautiful Imperfection - Kathryn J. Blain - September 2013 It wasn't until I started reading that I realized that this book was a Christian fiction novel as due to the content it was quite an edgy read. The book starts with our main character Teddy going out on a blind date with her friends as she has finally been cleared and in remission from her breast cancer after she had a mastectomy. Her friends believe this is what she needs to make herself feel beautiful again. Unfortunately, the night will end in disaster and tragedy as the club they picked ends up being the scene of a mass shooting. Her friend Linda's husband ends up being among the casualties. Teddy and a fellow Marine have been hailed as heroes as they managed to stop the shooter Jack Sprague. It is here that Teddy will meet a blast from her past - Detective Sloan Michaels who was Teddy's first love and the guy whom she never got over after he dumped her without explanation. Sloan has...