(2) YA "When was the last time she'd actually felt safe? She knew the exact minute of the exact day." Claire didn't die in the North Carolina school shooting that took the lives of three fellow students and a teacher, but she is a victim nevertheless, and so are Eleanor and Brezzen, whose lives are intertwined with Claire's, in Bliss's affecting narrative triptych. Claire's troubled existence at her new school in Minnesota is plotted out with precision, as she must decide "which routes to take in the hallway, which teachers would understand when she needed to just put her head down," and how to keep "monstrous" thoughts at bay. Where Claire is troubled, Eleanor is angry, her rage-infused first-person voice represented by the iconoclastic FUCK GUNS T-shirt she made after the incident. Her fury is directed at teachers, coaches, school board members, the whole town in North Carolina, where "it has been an entire year and nobody has done a damn thing." Brezzen has retreated into his fantasy-game world of Wizards & Warriors, with its Game Masters, dragons, and skeleton hordes. In each memorable narrative thread, characters are distinct and carefully drawn, though the author's hand is at times evident in language too adult-sounding ("It must be difficult to be a creation...To lose all sorts of...I don't know. Agency, maybe. Control?") and in advice offered by helpful teachers. But the three stories do yield "an honest picture of healing after trauma," as the author hopes for in his acknowledgments.

Reviewer: Dean Schneider | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2021

(2) YA Interspersed with Luke's letters--from death row--to best friend Toby, a third-person narrative flashes back to a significant week in their senior year, slowly revealing the severity of Toby's dad abusing him and the depth of Luke's loyalty (and stifled rage). In this tense and tragic story there is profundity at every turn; readers up for heartbreak will come away understanding more about loyalty, empathy, and redemption.

Reviewer: Katrina Hedeen | Horn Book Magazine Issue: July, 2018

(2) YA Thomas should be shipping off to boot camp in the morning, but after his older brother returned from war a "blank wall," Thomas wants to run away. While Thomas ruminates, he and friend Mallory pull an all-nighter revisiting childhood landmarks. Their nostalgia for their shared childhood becomes a tender counterpoint to their anxieties about growing up. A thoughtful, penetrating family drama.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald | Horn Book Magazine Issue: May, 2016

(2) YA Abigail's family, newly arrived in San Francisco from North Carolina, prays for ascension in the Rapture. When the world doesn't end, her parents choose to live in their van while awaiting divine guidance, testing Abigail's faith in God and family. This debut novel's depiction of a middle-class, suburban family's transition to life on the streets sensitively explores family, sacrifice, and everyday faith.

Reviewer: Jessica Tackett MacDonald | Horn Book Magazine Issue: January, 2015