Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash is a dark novel which follows the story of Alys, whose world shifts dramatically when her brother decides to shoot up her school, killing fifteen, including her boyfriend’s younger sister. The story paints a dramatic landscape of the aftermath, as her family and community struggle to move on from the incident. As Alys only wants things to be normal again, everyone in her life turns on her.
Sue Klebold is the mother of one of the two shooters from the Columbine shooting, Dylan Klebold. The shooting took the lives of thirteen students and teachers. Klebold’s memoir looks back on her son’s childhood and adolescence, reflecting on the missed signals of severe depression with much regret that she could not see those signals. She also reflects on the aftermath of the tragedy and how it was to be thrust into the public spotlight in such a way. Klebold wanted to destigmatize mental illness and explain that her son was an ordinary student with an undiagnosed clinical mental illness.
This Is Where It Ends is a young adult novel by Marieke Nijkamp. The novel is about a school shooting that takes place in a small town’s highschool. One of the students, Tyler Browne, is responsible for the shooting, locking the students in the auditorium and ending up killing thirty-nine people.
At 10:00 a.m., the principal of Opportunity High School finishes her speech welcoming students back from winter break.
At 10:02 a.m., students get up to leave the auditorium for class.
At 10:03 a.m., the auditorium doors won't open.
At 10:05 a.m., someone starts shooting.
This story is told from 4 different perspectives over the span of 54 terrifying minutes. Fear reigns as a former student's revenge turns into a game of survival.
Brendan and Gray have been relentlessly harassed and bullied by the jocks at Middletown high for as long as they could remember. But not anymore. They decide enough is enough. They take all their classmates hostage at a school dance with an arsenal of stolen guns. It soon becomes clear to the students during the chaos that the only thing that matters to Brendan and Gary is revenge. At points along the story, there are statistics about gun violence, further educating the reader's understanding of the backdrop of this story.
Four different people, four separate stories, and four unique perspectives are all tied together by fear. As the school-wide assembly ends, the entire school discovers that all the doors are locked as a student starts shooting. In this fast paced read, which only spans the course of fifty minutes, the reader gets the perspective of four students, who all have reasons to fear the boy holding the gun. Each character reflects on how they are tied to the shooter, decisions they have made, and how they got to this point all while testing their strength in this nerve-wracking, suspenseful book.
