about the book
Alys is a normal high school student. On one of those transitional days between winter and spring when you can’t sit still, Alys hunches over her laptop in the school library, working last minute on her history project—due in three days. Her upcoming violin audition has been her focus, and she has stayed up most nights this week to practice Brahms’s violin sonata. And, of course, she looks forward to being in her boyfriend’s arms.
Suddenly, something happens that brings Alys’s school to the headlines, and Alys’s world is changed forever.
Bangs, popping noises, and screams are heard from the school. A classmate runs into the library, red-faced, and pants, “Gunshots…Somebody has a gun out there. For real!”
Someone is out there pointing a shotgun at his teachers and fellow students. When he comes into the library, Alys watches another student fall to the ground.
Then Alys is traumatized by the sight of Luke, her own brother, holding the gun. He points the gun at Alys, but turns away to kill another student, silencing the pleas with a bullet.
Ultimately, Luke kills fourteen people—and himself. Faced with misery and despair, Alys can’t stop wondering why Luke spared her. To make matters worse, her family is hounded by reporters, and Alys stands by as her parents’ fights worsen. Shunned by her best friend and boyfriend, Alys has no one to turn to.
Faced with a new life, Alys will be able to move forward only if she can find a way to define herself as someone other than the sister of a school shooter.
about the author
Jennifer Banish, born and raised in New York City, now lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
She describes her twenties as a hot mess. She was married at 22 but divorced nine months later. She then decided to focus on writing, transitioning from poetry to narratives. She had to work a ton of undesirable jobs to support herself while writing and going to Arizona State, so she wrote at night and felt like a zombie throughout the days, but she says it was well worth it.
After graduating, Jennifer moved to Iowa for graduate school, but had to hold off a year when she broke her back in a car accident But she took advantage of this time to write her first novel; it was never published but gave her the experience she needed in order to become the successful writer that she is today.
Since beginning her Ph.D. Jennifer has started teaching. She teaches 9th and 12th grade English at a private school in California. She lives with her daughter, partner, and two beagles.
Sources:
Author website
Author biography: Goodreads
Guest blog: In Bed With Books
Author Biography: NYQ Poets
Also by Jennifer Banash:
White Lines. Putnam Publishing (Juvenile). 2013.
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