Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong - HIGH

Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong, 369 pages.  Crown (Random House), 2018.  $18.  

Content: Language: R (97 swears); Mature Content: PG; Violence: PG-13.  

BUYING ADVISORY: MS, HS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: HIGH  

Skye Gilchrist is a social pariah ever since her brother was a shooter at the local high school.  Although Skye and her mother moved to live with her grandmother after the shooting, it’s been three years and Skye has to move back to the city of the shooting to live with her more competent aunt.  As Skye tries to navigate the bullying and the heartache of seeing how much the shooting changed her best friend, Jesse, something more sinister starts to happen to Skye and the truth about the day of the shooting starts to come to the surface.  

I was hooked from the beginning with this book.  Skye and Jesse’s stories are both easy to empathize with and the hidden mystery was compelling and well developed.  The content includes a bloody fist fight, a school shooting and bullying (including sexual intimidation).  

Reviewer, C. Peterson.