Bloomland

Bloomland / John Englehardt, 195 pgs.

It is finals week at a fictional southern university when a shooting takes place in the library.  This book follows three characters who are affected by the shooting.  Rose is a freshman who is trying to shed her difficult childhood.  Eddie teaches English and is trying to save his marriage...or maybe just figure out his marriage.  Eli is also a student but he becomes the shooter.  The story moves forward and backward focusing on a different character each chapter.  I had some confusion trying to follow who was doing the talking as it bounced around from 2nd person POV.  But the overall story is interesting and the characters are memorable.  The shooter's story, is perhaps the most compelling.

#NeverAgain

#NeverAgain: A New Generation Draws the Line by David Hogg and Lauren Hogg, 165 pages

David and Lauren Hogg are students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, site of the February 14 mass shooting that killed 17 of their classmates and spawned the March For Our Lives movement. In this short book, the siblings candidly discuss their experiences before, during, and after the shooting, including their roles in the now-nationwide movement for stricter gun control. While it's heart-wrenching to read, it is encouraging to hear them discuss this topic in their own voices and with such poise. Here's to their generation and the power they bring with them: may you accomplish what so many have failed to do before!

Fierce Kingdom

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips, 275 pages

An afternoon at the zoo turns deadly when the kid-friendly attraction becomes the scene of a mass shooting. Fierce Kingdom follows 40-year-old Joan and her 4-year-old Lincoln as they attempt to escape the notice of the shooters during a siege that stretches way longer than the short but devastating events that so often happen. In this tight, gripping thriller, Phillips creates a story that tugs at every protective, parental instinct a reader has while twisting us through the minds of Joan, one of the shooters, and, briefly, two other women caught in the zoo. More than any spooky supernatural story, this is true horror, well done.