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Reviewing fictional school shooting books ;P

This is where it ends | Marieke Nijkamp

Pure bs. Wouldnt recommend this to anyone. The corniest, most unnatural dialogue Ive ever seen in a written text. Teenagers give monologues abt good prevailing over evil while theyre trapped in an auditorium w the shooter. The whole thing lasts for an hour even though everyone has a phone...but no one is smart enough to call the police so instead main characters have to sneak out of the school and run to a gas station to do that. No one successfully tackles(or even attempts to tackle, I honestly dont remember) the shooter despite there being over 200 ppl...The shooter is straight-up cartoonishly evil with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and he spends the whole book talking abt how everyone betrayed him and left him alone on the STAGE😭 while the protagonists all have soppy stories and traumatic childhoods. The main cast consists of: a ballerina w a dead mother, abusive alcoholic father, and a school shooter for a brother; her immigrant lesbian girlfriend, the girlfriend's brother, and the girlfriend's brother's muslim immigrant friend. Oh yeah and the shooter is, u guessed it, js a plain white guy that specifically targets this rather diverse friend group/ physically harrasses his sister's girlfriend. While its true that most perps are racist homophobic white incels, this was probably the worst way to portray their ideologies. Overall appalling, please dont waste ur time on it like I did. 0,5/5

Rage | Stephen King

Foaming at the mouth js thinking abt this one🤤 straight up perfection, prolly the first book covering this issue(since it came out in 1977) the pace, the characters, the writing...Ughhh. 5/5

Nineteen minutes | Jodi Picoult

Kind of similar to wnttak in the sense that it also shows parents dealing w the aftermath of a shooting. Had a pretty predictable plot twist and some parts couldve been shorter but other than that I liked the attention to details when it came to portraying an accurate trial process...4/5

Hate list | Jennifer Brown

A nice read if a bit forgettable. The plot basically follows a girl and her healing journey after her boyfriend shot up their school, hit her in the leg, and killed himself. The title refers to a list she and her boyfriend compiled together, which prompts the public to treat her as an accomplice. She loses her friends becomes depressed her parents divorce yada yada but in the end it all works out and she gives an emotional speech at graduation. The only thing I found a bit out of touch with reality was the notion that a school shooter could have a girlfriend 0_o ...3,5/5

We need to talk about kevin | Lionel Shriver

I honestlt dont have much to say abt this one. The movie was awesome but the book ended up being a gazillion times better and explored themes of child neglect and parental regret 5/5

My main problem with books(specifically books, the majority of the movies abt the same topic are fine) about fictional school shootings is the overdramatization and trying to turn the story around into some sort of motivational speech about not giving up life and continuing to live. And the latter part isnt bad in itself, I just feel like its too direct and the authors tend to kind of skip over the event itself, what lead up to it, its immediate aftermath, and the grief process just to get to the happy ending and make a point abt how shit happens and everyone js has to pull through. They’re also mostly focused on the victims and the perps are these shallow cardboard villains and so the roots of the school shooting phenomenon remain unexplored even in fiction. Plus I personally find it a bit unrealistic how perpetrators and victims know each other before the attack...while irl shooters make hit lists and attempt to target those people, actually killing someone theyve had beef with is more on the impossible side since, in the end, no matter how much time is spent planning, the event always falls more on the random/improvised side. So while the "my childhood best friend with whom we've drifted away as we got older shot up my school and killed every single one of my friends right in front of my eyes" trope is interesting and all that, its still hella dramatized and milking the tragedy for extra trauma points.

Oh and if anyone has any recs let me know etc etc

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