First Impressions

The introduction to this book is awesome. There's something thats just, well, exciting about a book that begins with gunfire. Then it follows up the gunfire with a flashback, creating a a "Tarantino" effect (and I love Tarantino movies). You can already see the alternating "chapters" between the past and the present, and you know that somewhere the two will collide, and we, the reader, will have the full story.

This makes me think that, the shooting, or at least the point of view we saw it from, is not the climax. We saw the result, the finished product, and now we start to see the beginning. Somewhere in the middle lies the heart of this tragic story, and I really want to uncover it. Along the way, I like how the author doesn't focus on one character. She has a few set characters, but they all seem typecast to me. There are the two mothers, one focused solely on work, the other overbearing; there's Peter, the outcast, the sad, lonely nerd; and there's Josie, the popular girl who is all depressed because nobody "gets" her. Like those are anything new. What I really enjoy are the supposedly  "minor" characters. People like Patrick, the detective, and Jordan, Peter's attorney. Those are the people I really enjoy viewing the story from. 

In fact, I wish that the author incorporated them into the flashback sections. All we see are the main characters, the kids and their mothers. What I would like to see are things like Patrick's first homicide investigation, or Jordan's first acquittal. Sure those perspectives are not as important when the shooting hasn't happened yet, but who likes to eat cake with no frosting. Frosting is amazing! 

So in short, I hope the author throws in more minor characters. I already know how the regulars think, how they act. 

On a side note, the suicide note before each chapter is haunting, but it is my personal opinion that the note isn't Peter's. It's Josie's. Peter had ample opportunity to kill himself, but he couldn't do it. Josie has the pills, let's see if she uses them.....