Recent Reads: That Night by Amy Giles

Source: From a Publicist in exchange for an honest review. This in no way alters my opinion or review.

That Night by Amy Giles

Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date:  October 23, 2018

 

Format:  Hardback

Rating:


 



Goodreads Synopsis: 

One night in March, a terrible tragedy shakes the Queens neighborhood where Jessica Nolan and Lucas Rossi live.

The year since the shooting has played out differently for Jess and Lucas, both of whom were affected by that night in eerily similar, and deeply personal, ways. Lucas has taken up boxing and lives under the ever-watchful eye of his overprotective parents, while trying to put good into the world through random acts of kindness — to pay back a debt he feels he owes the universe for taking the wrong brother.

Jess struggles to take care of her depressed mother, with the help of her elderly next-door neighbor, and tries to make ends meet. Without her best friend, who’s across the country at a special post-trauma boarding school, and her brother, who died that night, Jess feels totally alone in the world.

When Jess and Lucas's paths cross at their shared after-school job, they start to become friends… and then more.

Their community — and their families — were irrevocably changed by a senseless act of violence. But as Jess and Lucas fall in love, they'll learn to help each other heal and move forward — together.

That Night is an emotional and ultimately hopeful story about tragedy, love, and learning to heal.

Review: 

Trigger warning... this book is about a shooting.
 
I am not even sure where or how to start with this review ... so the best place is probably by telling you that this book is tragic but in a good way.  The book is about a shooting and many teen lives were lost. The story does not focus on the event or even in the aftermath, but a year later with the families that are still broken and trying to live. 

The book alternates between two point of view - Jess and Lucas, both have lost a sibling in the shooting and both are trying to cop in separate ways. The book is about them coming together to heal and move on as best as they can and it is a beautiful story. 

Their turmoil was real, the grief was laced through the whole book, but there was also a brightness that was really well done. I really enjoyed this book, and that feels weird to say about book that is so heavily loaded with sadness but it was really really good.

The book it contemporary and the author notes that it was not written to be a certain event but the feeling of an event. She notes that the people that die are not the only ones that lost something and that is really important especially now that we are dealing with this kind of thing all too often.