I really wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. It has the tagline "The Breakfast Club meets We Need to Talk About Kevin." I wrote my Capstone paper for my degree on school shootings. During my research, I read many books on school shootings, both fiction and nonfiction, including, We Need to Talk About Kevin. For me, this book missed the mark on both its comparison to The Breakfast Club and We Need to Talk About Kevin which was really disappointing to me.

Shooter primarily takes place in the boy's bathroom of a high school that is in lockdown. The main characters include Hogan - the jock, Isabelle - the school princess, Alice- brain -Xander - the weird one and Noah who is autistic. I thought the sections told from Noah's point of view were interesting. They were told through his thoughts and through pictures. I cannot even begin to imagine what it would be like for someone with autism to be in a school lockdown situation where there is an active shooter and loud noises and tension rolling off the other students in waves.

Now let's look at the caricatures of the jock, the princess, and the weird one. Hogan played football until there was an incident resulting in his brother's death. Now the other students are afraid of him and spreading rumors about him. (This is not a spoiler - we learn this basic info early on). Hogan's behavior feels authentic to how someone in his situation behave. He is probably my favorite character in the book.

Alice is good student and loves writing. She's quiet and none as "the weird guys" sister. I find it really hard to believe that in the world we live in now that other students would refer to Noah as "the weird guy." I'm not saying that people with autism don't get picked on or made fun of - but the fact that none of the other kids know that he is autistic is weird to me. Anyway, I digress. Alice cares deeply about her brother and has taken all the responsibility for her brother onto her shoulders almost to the point of having a martyr mentality.

Isabelle is so vapid and unlikable in my opinion. I feel like the authors depiction of her is the least real portrayal in the book. Isabelle supposedly is the queen bee of the school and has all this pressure to be popular both in school and from her parents. She supposedly had this life changing experience that made her see life differently, but that doesn't ring true to me. She's so shallow. She knows they are in lockdown because of an active shooter, and she spends the time in lockdown complaining about her life and her boyfriend. To me this just doesn't ring true. These seem like pretty shallow things to be talking about or thinking about when you could be shot and killed. This character just doesn't ring true to me.

Xander is the mysterious weird kid. He likes taking pictures, is obsessed with X-Men and has weird conversational habits. The author never outright says it, but to me Xander feels like he also has a form of autism or possibly Asperger's. He sees the world differently than his fellow students and he doesn't pick up on social cues or societal norms. He reminds me very much of a friend of mine that has Asperger's. While Hogan is favorite characters, I think Xander is one of the most interesting because of how he sees the world. His Social Autopsies showed us an interesting glimpse of who he is as a character.

The Shooter - whose identity I will not spoil, is the least fleshed out of all the characters. To compare him to Kevin, from We Need to Talk About Kevin, is a major reach. This character seems more like an afterthought. I feel like we don't really know him or his real motivations. For me, the reason I wrote my Capstone paper on school shootings is because I'm a bit obsessed with knowing the shooter(s). Why did they do it? What lead up to this? What is the motivation? Where did we fail as a society with this person to make them feel that killing classmates and teachers is the answer to life's problems. We don't really have that with the shooter in this book. We get small glimpses but not a lot of why. There is so much depth in We Need to Talk About Kevin. We really get deep into his psyche and it's a twisted and dark place. There really is no comparison between these two characters or even these two books.

I gave this book 3 stars because I did enjoy reading it and it was a fast read, but it lacked the depth and the emotion that I was looking for. In the end, lives are changed - which you would expect from an active shooter situation. I just don't find this book very believable.

Interesting enough and well written but it felt very fictional and unrealistic at parts considering the subject matter.

This book did remind me of Breakfast Club, but it was a fast read about a timely subject that I am sure YA's an new adults will want to read. Sadly, too many of them have encountered this situation. I think it's a different take on these school shooting books I've read. The most memorable one was Hate List by Jennifer Brown- excellent, gripping read. This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp was also a compelling read. But this one suits just fine. It is well written with a view point many YA's may not be familiar with.

While the writing is done nicely, I felt like this was ground already covered before.

Razorbill Canada and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Shooter. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

Shooter involves a plot that is all too common in today's society. When a teenager on the fringes of his high school microcosm decides to amp up his pranks to something more deadly, will a group of teens together in lockdown be able to help the police stop the tragedy from happening?

The biggest problem that I had with Shooter was that the author decided to stick with the normal clichés and ended up with a totally expected story line. Unfortunately, there was not one point in the story that I was able to shake my head and feel that I did not see it coming. The author does a good job of creating movement in the story, despite the fact that three-quarters of the book takes place in a bathroom. The characters, although their typical natures were expected, were fully developed and I could see a sense of who they were. Overall, the concept was good, but Shooter falls short of my expectations.

This book is told from the perspective of 5 very different kids who are trapped together in a boy's bathroom during a lockdown. When it becomes apparent that this is not just a drill, the kids start to work together to keep each other and the other kids at their school safe. I really liked the premise of this book, I liked the exciting unfolding of the story, I liked each of the characters for lots of different reasons. I thought this one was great.

Much more about the lives of five very different high school students than a school shooting. A modern day Breakfast Club, complete with the princess, the nerd, the weirdo, and the jock. Most of these people don't spent any time together or even notice each other at all. Locked in a room with no way out, is it possible that they could gain some kind of understanding about each other?

Alice is the shy and nerdy writer. She spends a lot of time worrying after her autistic brother, Noah. When everything is going right, he's fine. When things change, he can be unpredictable. Locked in a bathroom with strangers is not the ideal situation for anyone, and for him it's much worse. Isabelle is the stuck-up and spoiled school president. She has issues of her own, but it's hard to see past her ego-mania. Hogan is the huge ex-football player with a troubled past who radiates hostility and anger. Xander is a socially awkward photographer who has a really hard time understanding other people. These are not people that would hang out together... but now they have nowhere else to go.

They know their school is on lockdown. They know there's rumors of a shooter roaming the hallways. They know that there is a police presence in the school. What they don't know is who to watch out for... and how they're ever going to leave the school.

Read and enjoyed in one sitting. I'd recommend it to readers who like YA novels. There's bound to be a character here you relate to in some way, and the story is very intriguing.

I received a copy of this book from Net Galley and Penguin Random House Canada, thank you! My review is honest and unbiased.

There's a fine line between thought provoking exploration of an emotionally charged topic and sensationalism. IT has been my experience that most books about school shootings, particularly those that take place in the midst of the event rather than reflecting on the aftermath, have a tendancy to cross that line.The disparate group of teens thrown together can feel forced.

The premise of Caroline Pignat's novel Shooter is one I think many of my students would be interested in, but for some readers it might be too much.

The narrative unfolds in all of the character's voices: Isabelle (the high-achieving Queen Bee), Hogan (the bad-boy athlete), Alice (the introverted girl from a broken home), Noah (Alice's autistic brother), and Xander (the photography-loving loner). The characters in this book are stuck in the third floor boys' bathroom during a lockdown. They believe it is just another drill, until Isabelle, receives a text message that says otherwise. Panic sets in further when they discover that there is a second shooter and everyone becomes a suspect.

There were bright moments in this book but ultimately it fell flat for me. One of the things I questioned was the actual timeline of the events. At times it felt like 30 minutes must have passed for all the conversations and action to have happened but according to the book it had all happened within 6 minutes. There were so many narrators that it was difficult to get a real sense of them and care about them in a real way. They felt more cliche and stereotypical than anything else. The end seemed rushed and I was left with a lot of questions about the aftermath of the lockdown and the shooter.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Shooter instantly appealed to me because I love books that deal with raw emotion. I knew I just had to read it. As an added benefit, this one also has multiple narrators, so readers are given bits of information from various perspectives as they puzzle the story together.

As I anticipated, I devoured Shooter! Each narrator's voice was unique and gave an added struggle to the situation unfolding at this school, which could be anywhere. Readers will race to uncover the personal struggles of each character as they deal with being locked together in the boys' bathroom during a school lockdown. As readers get to know the characters, suspicions will rise, wondering if each character could be somehow involved or targeted.

Shooter is a fast-paced, raw, emotional novel that packs a punch and makes readers think about what goes one when no one else is looking - really looking - at us. This book is for fans of Jennifer Brown's Hate List, Shaun David Hutchinson's Violent Ends, and Marieke Nijkamp's This is Where it Ends.

An interesting book for interesting times. Shooter is an interesting book because it manages to 'reinvent' The "school-shooting" genre that has become popular in YA recently. Instead of focusing on the circumstances of the shooting, it focuses on the lives of a hodgepodge of five students. This book is perfect for students grades 8-10 because of this aspect- kids will find at least one character that they can relate to. The book is fast-paced, engaging, and though-provoking without being too graphic or dramatic. It takes issues seriously but communicates them in a way teens can understand. I have always been a fan of contemporary YA that gets to the point, and Shooter definitely does.

I enjoyed this book. I read it shortly after reading 2016's This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp. The two books were quite similar in how they changed points of view between students for different chapters. But I thought Shooter was the better story. It seemed more realistic and you felt like you were there in the bathroom with the students on lockdown. Unfortunately, stories about school violence are more relevant now than ever. I'm glad that authors are tackling the subject in a relatable manner. Pignat's Shooter offers readers a way to understand a scary situation and see fictional characters work together to stay safe without glorifying the person behind the horrible actions.