Tuesday 11 April 2023

This Can Never Not Be Real by Sera Milano


Ebook provided by NetGalley for review. Thank you.

3/5 stars

I think that this is a book that will require a physical reread at some point. The formatting of who was saying what appeared to be a little mixed up in my eBook version, though I know you can't expect perfection in ARCs. I also don't know if I absorbed it as effectively as I could have.

It's a very unusual book. It's an as it happens narration of the experience of 5 teenagers (only 4 narrate the vast majority) as they try to survive a terrorist mass shooting event. They all attend the same school but none really interact normally yet are thrown together by fate.

I think claustrophobic is a good way to describe this book. Not just because of the hiding in small spaces but because 98% of the book was just this one event. I think I would have liked to have read more from the outside. Not from the terrorists themselves, I completely understand the author's decision on that front, no the police officers and the families on the outside, how did they find out, how did they feel? All we got were a couple of brief police reports that could have been expanded on.

I did like the writing style and would definitely read more by the author, I'd particularly love a sequel to see how the characters are sometime down the line.

Stef Out x

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