Author: Kimberly Jones & Gilly Segal
Series: Standalone
Genre: Contemporary/Ya
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Publication Date: October 1st, 2019
Edition: Kindle Edition, 272 pages
Source: NetGalley
Pre-Order: Amazon US | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | BAM
Synopsis:
Lena and Campbell aren't friends.
Lena has her killer style, her awesome boyfriend, and a plan. She knows she's going to make it big. Campbell, on the other hand, is just trying to keep her head down and get through the year at her new school.
When both girls attend the Friday-night football game, what neither expects is for everything to descend into sudden mass chaos. Chaos born from violence and hate. Chaos that unexpectedly throws them together.
They aren't friends. They hardly understand the other's point of view. But none of that matters when the city is up in flames, and they only have each other to rely on if they're going to survive the night.
Review:
This book is very different from most of the books I read. While I do and have read Contemporary, this book is different from those. This is the first book I've read that talks about racial tension.
This book is fast-paced and had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through (once I actually had time to sit and read it). Both Lena and Campbell are smart characters who held it together far better than I ever could have if I were in their position.
This book does a good job talking about racial tension, but there are other things in this book that kind of don't fully add up.
There is no sensible reason for Lena to try to get to her boyfriend, especially when he was giving her the runaround the whole night. Lena seems to be a very self-assured person and her boyfriend... who knows. He seems to have goals, and even though he's older than her, he acts very self-centered and uncaring that she was stuck in the middle of a riot. I also didn't really care for having her use poor grammar, I guess they were trying to give the two girls different voices, but it seems like a gross stereotype to have the black girl speak with bad grammar.
Campbell seemed to be overly distraught over her father's store being broken into with no explanation for why she was that upset. Nothing to indicate whether her father had insurance, or if he had faulted on a payment for or not. It's possible that it was just the straw that broke the camels back for her, and she was overreacting. But it's unlikely that she just didn't know how business insurance works. Nothing was said about what happened between her father and the kid who was hired to work at the store, who just left when things started getting heated, who is basically at fault for it getting broken into in the first place. And the end of it all, there isn't even a discussion between Campbell and her father, how he basically abandons her every weekend, and if he had been there for her, she wouldn't have almost died, the store might not have gotten broken into. None of that was covered, it just ends with her getting a text from Lena.
I don't know when exactly this book is supposed to be set. Clearly during a time when Cellphones and Uber exist. But Campbell's mother is transferred to work in Venezuela, and considering what is going on in that area right now, that seems odd. We are also never told what her mother does for a living that would require her to be transferred overseas, especially to a country that is going through political upheaval.
There was also the ending to consider. It just kind of... ends. A one-off sentence to cover what happened to Lena's cousin, and even less with Campbell. There is nothing that covers the aftermath of the night they went through. I would have liked more wrapup. Lena and Campbell are supposed to be kind of friends now, and after everything they went through, I would expect they had a pretty strong bond. They survived a very violent night together and saved each other's lives more than once. That's not something that is ever forgotten.
I don't normally share this, but I gave this book 3.5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, because it was an enjoyable read. Fast-paced and pretty action-packed, but there are these things that once you think about them, kind of take away from things and poke tiny holes in the believability of some things.
This book is fast-paced and had me on the edge of my seat the whole way through (once I actually had time to sit and read it). Both Lena and Campbell are smart characters who held it together far better than I ever could have if I were in their position.
This book does a good job talking about racial tension, but there are other things in this book that kind of don't fully add up.
There is no sensible reason for Lena to try to get to her boyfriend, especially when he was giving her the runaround the whole night. Lena seems to be a very self-assured person and her boyfriend... who knows. He seems to have goals, and even though he's older than her, he acts very self-centered and uncaring that she was stuck in the middle of a riot. I also didn't really care for having her use poor grammar, I guess they were trying to give the two girls different voices, but it seems like a gross stereotype to have the black girl speak with bad grammar.
Campbell seemed to be overly distraught over her father's store being broken into with no explanation for why she was that upset. Nothing to indicate whether her father had insurance, or if he had faulted on a payment for or not. It's possible that it was just the straw that broke the camels back for her, and she was overreacting. But it's unlikely that she just didn't know how business insurance works. Nothing was said about what happened between her father and the kid who was hired to work at the store, who just left when things started getting heated, who is basically at fault for it getting broken into in the first place. And the end of it all, there isn't even a discussion between Campbell and her father, how he basically abandons her every weekend, and if he had been there for her, she wouldn't have almost died, the store might not have gotten broken into. None of that was covered, it just ends with her getting a text from Lena.
I don't know when exactly this book is supposed to be set. Clearly during a time when Cellphones and Uber exist. But Campbell's mother is transferred to work in Venezuela, and considering what is going on in that area right now, that seems odd. We are also never told what her mother does for a living that would require her to be transferred overseas, especially to a country that is going through political upheaval.
There was also the ending to consider. It just kind of... ends. A one-off sentence to cover what happened to Lena's cousin, and even less with Campbell. There is nothing that covers the aftermath of the night they went through. I would have liked more wrapup. Lena and Campbell are supposed to be kind of friends now, and after everything they went through, I would expect they had a pretty strong bond. They survived a very violent night together and saved each other's lives more than once. That's not something that is ever forgotten.
I don't normally share this, but I gave this book 3.5 out of 5 stars on Goodreads, because it was an enjoyable read. Fast-paced and pretty action-packed, but there are these things that once you think about them, kind of take away from things and poke tiny holes in the believability of some things.
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