Thanks to Random House Children’s, Delacorte Press, and Net Galley for a copy of this book in exchange for my review.

When this book is being compared to Thirteen Reasons Why and All the Bright Places, I was immediately intrigued.

For me, there were really great things about this book. The setting. The characters and their feelings. The intensity created in this book was excellent. A lot of time authors struggle to create emotion and this really did well!

My issue was that it was a slow read. Actions felt slow. Characters felt slow to develop and change. While intriguing, I needed a little more speed.

Don’t miss this out on April 7th!

When a book is recommended for fans of Thirteen Reasons Why, This is How it Ends, and All the Bright Places you know it's going to be a book that tugs at your heart strings!

​May survived a school shooting by hiding in a closet while a classmate came into her band room and killed 7 classmates, including May's twin brother Jordan.

The author Liz Lawson did an amazing job bringing these characters to life. May shares her story with Zach, the son of the lawyer who is defending the shooter, David. May has been vandalizing the lawyer's home in an attempt to take out some of her anger. Zach's life hasn't been the same since his mother took this case. Everyone at school either ignores Zach, or worse, taunts him. His girlfriend has left him and is now dating his ex-best friend, who loves to rub it in his face.

Each characters handling this life changing event in different ways. Grief doesn't look the same and May has good days and horrible days. She has two friends that stand by her side, even when she goes off the deep end. They try to help her see that her brother Jordan would want her to LIVE!

Once you pick up this book you won't be able to put it down. May's life is like a train wreck, you can't look away and want to cheer her on.

School shooting survivor, May, befriends Zach, whose mom is a lawyer defending the school shooter. With backgrounds like that, of course these two are going to come together to grieve and heal! Some readers will enjoy reading about the PTSD of a survivor. I wanted to connect more with the characters as they grew. I felt more like I was constantly being told how they were feeling rather than being shown. Aside from that, overall, this was just okay. It’s a slow to develop read. I wouldn’t compare this book to 13 Reasons Why or All the Bright Places as the summary describes.

3.5 stars. This was a compelling story focused on the aftermath of a school shooting, with particular focus on the guilt that is felt by survivors. Both May and Zach were in terrible situations....but they knew they were in those situations and talked about it all the time. Instead of realizing the depth of it myself and empathizing, I felt somewhat annoyed. I wish I hadn’t, and I also wished that the aspects with the killer had been stronger. With that said, I devoured the story and experienced many emotions as a reader. The characters were fairly flushed out, although some were slow to develop/change.

This book was heartbreaking and hopeful. The characters were well developed and the plot intriguing.

I don't know if I agree with the summary comparing this to Thirteen Reasons Why or All the Bright Places—this isn't a story dealing with suicide and I believe that may turn people away from this very timely and impactful story. This is ultimately the story looking at the aftermath of a school shooting, almost a year before. 

The kind of guilt and anger May feels has taken over her life—her parents are nonexistent, she has pushed away almost all her friends, and her school standing is hanging by a thread. In her eyes, this is what she deserves—she was the lucky one, the survivor. Her friends, her favorite teacher, and her twin brother are dead while she hid in the closet. 

Zach hates being defined by his mother's actions. It's not his fault that his mom is defended the shooter, but it doesn't stop his classmates, former girlfriend, former best friend to treat him like a social pariah. 

What I loved about these characters was that they had their one person, the ones who stayed through thick and thin. For Zach, it's Conor and for May, it's Lucy. No matter how many times they are pushed away, they stay. Especially for May, who has isolated herself from almost everyone because she feels that she shouldn't have lived. Her brother was the genius, the great musician, and all May did was party because she wasn't the one in the spotlight. It's not until she starts to see that her brother would want her to live her life because she was given that chance. She needs to live for the both of them.

In the current climate, I found this book to be extremely compelling and while it was heartbreaking, the reader is left with some hope. I also found that the Author's Note at the end to be very important as to what Liz Lawson wanted to convey in writing this particular story. 

***TRIGGER WARNING***
school shooting, death of a sibling

ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a different type of book for me. This story deals with what happens in the aftermath of a school shooting, not so much the shooting itself. The closest book I have come to is Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult or The Hate List by Jennifer Brown. The book doesn’t go in depth into the why it happened or what the shooter was going through, but focuses on a girl that survived while her twin brother didn’t. Especially concentrating on her PTSD and survival guilt. For fans of Thirteen Reasons Why, This Is How It Ends, and All the Bright Places, comes a new novel about life after a major loss. What I love about this book is that it is so brutally honest and raw that it holds your attention and captures your feelings until the very last page. This book is intense, difficult, and important, and I highly recommend it.

This book is about a topic, school shootings, that is very difficult to write and yet a story we should all read. There is insight into what happens when the cameras have gone on to the next story and the families have to try and pick up the pieces of their lives.

This is well written and it highlights how hard it is for students to return to school even if it is one across town. You can feel the pain of trying to keep moving forward. The sadness of losing someone you loved so much. The guilt of being one of the Lucky ones because they survived the shooting. Anxiety and fear keep you isolated because crowds can be overwhelming.

May is a twin. Her brother Jordan was her best friend and her parents pride and joy. He was an advanced student with many opportunities to choose from that ended all too quickly. May was in the music room that day but when the shooter found her in the closet, he did not kill her. Instead he managed to kill her favorite teacher, her twin brother, and several other students. May struggles daily with why she is still here.

Zach was a popular kid in school until his mom decides to defend the school shooter. Overnight his life changes and the kids in school want nothing to do with him. He is a senior and he can get through this but his sister Gwen is not handling it very well. Zach tries to care for his sister since his mom is never home and his dad while he is physically there is just not engaged.

Mays best friend convinces her to go to her band audition the same night Zach one true friend brings him along as well. This is the night they meet and start to know each other.

How will May handle it when she finds out Zach's mom is defending the person who killed her brother? Do Zach and May even have a chance at a friendship at all?

I highly recommend reading this book. Thank you to Netgalley for my complimentary copy. The thoughts and opinions are my own!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC.

May is a survivor of a school shooting, one in which her twin brother died. Zach's mom is the lawyer defending the shooter. That's the basic back story behind our two POVs.

I'll be honest, I never struggled to keep up with whose POV was whose. I didn't love all the dialogue, and some of the scenes felt stiff and forced. It ultimately kind of went a direction that I'm not sure I loved.

However, in a big way, somewhere in between the two perspectives, I found myself. I found high school me, 15-16, walking through hallways where people whispered about me because my older brother chose to kill two people within miles of our high school. I say this, not to draw pity from those who might read my review, but to really drive home the point that there are kids out there who need books like these. There absolutely aren't enough of them. Even if the subject isn't specifically the same, and even if the perspectives aren't identical, it is so healing to read a story where someone is having similar thoughts, hearing similar insults thrown at them, and healing in spite of similar horrors.

The author's note at the end helped me with some of my feelings about what I initially thought were kind of questionable choices. There are lots of resources named in the very end-- including resources for help with PTSD and substance abuse, which I personally loved seeing.

I would recommend this book, but CW for alcohol use + abuse, allusions (imo) to drug use, and obviously, for gun-related violence and survivor's guilt.

It's not necessarily a perfect book, but it is, absolutely and unfortunately, a necessary one.

I'm going to start by talking about what happens outside the narration here. Liz Lawson included an author's note that describes how school shootings, particularly Sandy Hook, affected her family, several of whom work in education. Lawson goes on to mention several other school shootings, beginning with Columbine, and listing the names of people who were killed in each one. Seeing so many names filling up a page is a powerful, painful thing. I approve. People should not become complacent about shootings, and Lawson's approach seems like a good way to address the matter after creating a fictional shooting.

Another thing I approve of about Lawson's author's note is that she makes it very clear that although mental health is often mentioned in relation to school shootings, most people with mental illness are not violent. This, too, is important, I feel, because people with mental illness should not be stigmatized or stereotyped as potential offenders on the basis of their illness and, equally important, should not be encouraged to worry that their mental illness will turn them into someone who hurts and kills other people. Lawson also includes an extensive list of resources on a variety of topics relating to themes discussed in the text. Of all this, I approve.

The story itself follows two protagonists, May and Zach. May's twin brother was killed in a school shooting almost a year ago. Since then she has found some small release in vandalizing the house of the lawyer representing the shooter. Zach is the son of that lawyer, and his life has been ruined by his mother's decision. Now he just wants to be invisible, rather than vilified. May has only just recently returned to school after becoming a behavioral problem in the aftermath of her brother's death, and finds encounters with former classmates and evidence of their moving on not only infuriating but traumatic, bringing on feelings of rage or panic. Were it not for her extraordinarily amazing friend, Lucy, she probably wouldn't make it through.

The two meet in drama class, a result of May's old high school being closed and the students divvied up between two other high schools, including Zach's. They meet again when Lucy ends up in Zach's best friend's band (which also happens to include Zach's ex-best friend who is dating Zach's ex-girlfriend). Lucy, I must say, is a treasure. A bisexual Haitian immigrant who is also a drummer and amazingly supportive of May, Lucy is the real MVP of this book. A lot of the other characters are made to seem pretty two dimensional, possibly on purpose to demonstrate how checked-out both protagonists are at this point, and how little energy they have to see others as whole human beings, but also possibly because Lawson didn't care to spend much time fleshing them out.

Interestingly, parents seem to be the exception to this quick characterization: we hear a lot about Zach's dad's bizarre behavior, and his mother's apparent indifference to the hell her decision to represent the shooter is putting her children through. We hear less about May's parents, except that they have become even more distant with her than they were while her all-star brother was alive, which was pretty distant. It's nice to see parents actually present as characters in their high school age children's lives, even though they don't really seem to be doing much parenting.

Despite their baggage, May and Zach find in each other kindred spirits, taking comfort in each other and forgiving each other for the things they didn't do. Right up until they can't anymore, and they have to discover whether May is too broken and Zach too hurt to keep on forgiving. Neither teen's pain is made less of, and the trauma they've each experienced is portrayed believably. For some readers, this will be a very hard book.

There are two other things I want to touch on. First, the bookstore Zach takes May to. I really hope there's a real-world analogue somewhere. It seems like the sort of magical place I would fall in love with. Though it also seems like the author saw a lot of photos of really cool bookstores and made of them a single store, since I recognize some of the features described from listicles about beautiful bookstores. Second, the description of the teacher whose classroom was targeted HURT. When he begged the shooter to stop, to shoot him instead, it reminded me so much of teachers I've loved who would have done the same.

Ultimately, I recommend this book. I wouldn't care to re-read it, I think, nor would I care to own it, but there's undeniably a market, and this is a good treatment of a horrific subject.

OMG!!! Talk about a heart wrenching book! I could not put this book down it had me up until 6 am 😬 I just had to finish it. I cannot even count how many times this book made me cry.

This book is about a shooting that takes place at a high school. It is from the victims point of view. We never really u sees tabs what the victim is going through if we’ve never been in there shoes. Imagine how it feels to hear about a school shooting, it’s a horrible feeling. But imagine actually being there...it’s a nightmare! Imagine the victims living their lives everyday wondering why they were so lucky to be the ones still alive.

I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a heart wrenching book!

Thank you to Delacorte Press and Netgalley for the ARC.

I’ve read stories about school shootings, and they are not my favorite. Once I read the description of this book, I was wary about it since the impetus of May’s story is a shooting in which her twin brother Jordan is killed, along with 7 other people.

However, The Lucky Ones is different. It’s about what happens after. After the initial horror, after the national media attention, after public interest has worn off. What happens when people have stopped caring about the lucky ones, the ones who escaped death and are left with the guilt of surviving when so many others didn’t?

May is angry. Constantly. Angry at herself for being the only one in the band room who survived. Angry at her parents for disappearing after Jordan’s death and leaving her to deal with the pain alone. Angry at Michelle Teller, the lawyer who takes the shooter on as her client. Angry at the world for not understanding anything she’s going through.

May has closed herself off from the world, convinced she doesn’t need anyone’s help dealing with her trauma. But things start to change when Zach comes into her life, and May slowly starts to unwind and let people back into her life.
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I have followed Liz Lawson on Twitter for awhile, and one of my favorite things about her is that she takes teenager seriously. She has gotten backlash for how her characters in the book are portrayed, particularly the amount of cussing that happens, but she has repeatedly held fast on that. Teenagers cuss. A lot. Anyone who works in schools knows that. And that is just one part of what I love about these characters. They seem like real people. They are at the age where they don’t necessarily trust adults and don’t think they know anything about what they’re going through. And I remember feeling like that as a teenager. Many adults forget how hard being a teenager is, but I think Liz captures them perfectly in this book.

The subject matter is rough, but handled well. Liz touches on mental health—May regularly experiences panic attacks, and Zach’s dad suffers from depression. She portrays the complexity of relationships when you’re a teenager—relationships to parents, relationships with siblings, and arguably the most important of all to a teenager, friendships. May’s voice is authentic, and Liz’s writing really immerses you into May and Zach’s story.

This is a tough read, but a really good one. Five stars

I found this YA fiction book very well-written and tremendously engaging. The emotional responses of the characters is spot-on and the topic - the trauma and aftermath of school shootings - is handled honestly but sensitively. If I had to pick one word to describe the focus of this book it’s emotions - the emotions of the various students affected by the shooting, their families, the greater community. Multiple points of view make the emotions more vivid and authentic. I think this is a very compelling story about the effects of a devastating, but increasingly common, event in modern times and what it means to “survive” this type of tragedy.

This was a great book that dealt with a hard topic. Being in high school is hard enough, but when you add your twin sibling dying and then meeting the kid whose mother is defending the shooter you might get a tad upset.

Honestly, it’s been a whole night since I’ve finished reading this book and I’m still in tears. I’ll be honest and say that I was a little hesitant to start this book because I was worried that this book would be profiting off trauma. But no, I was pleasantly surprised by how good and respectful this book is. The Lucky Ones is a captivating story of grief and guilt but also overwhelming love and hope.

This book is very heavy. School shootings are almost a constant in today’s news cycle to the point that we’re all a little numb, but this book jolts us out of that complacency. It tells the story of the lucky ones, the people who survived a school shooting, but are they really that lucky to have to carry so much grief and pain?

The Lucky Ones depicts the rage and grief of May, who was the only survivor in the room the day of the shooting. On top of that, her twin brother died in the attack, so she’s suffering with guilt and sorrow over only living because she just happened to be in a closet and missing her brother. We also follow Zach, whose mother is the lawyer defending the shooter. Because of that, he’s lost his girlfriend and is being ostracized at school despite the fact that he opposes his mother’s decision. They’re both living with the consequences of that day in different ways.

I also loved the side characters: Lucy, May’s best friend who’s been there every day for the past eleven months; Chim, May’s other friend who struggles with saying the right thing but will always be there for May; and Conor, Zach’s best friend and the only person who didn’t stop talking to him. They’re all so supportive and caring.

I can’t stress how emotional this book is; I almost cried in the last quarter! The writing was so poignant, and the points of view felt so distinctive. Everything just felt so visceral. May’s anger is so potent, especially because it’s so obviously tinted with grief.

Amidst all of this, though, they’re all teenagers, and it really feels like that. They make stupid decisions. They swear and drink and refuse to talk to adults. Also, Zach is always so nervous around May because he’s a teenage guy with a girl he likes! It’s cute and a reminder that they’re all still learning and growing up.

This book doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending, but it’s definitely a hopeful one. The Lucky Ones was a stunning debut that respectfully handles a traumatic experience and the aftereffects of it while showing the hope and love and support that can still follow. I cannot wait to read more from Liz Lawson!

This was a powerful story told with dual povs through the eyes of a lone survivor of a school shooting, where she lost her twin brother and hope of ever having anything normal again. As well as the son of the lawyer defending the person responsible.

I think this story is important and touches on something that sadly isn't so out of the norm anymore. I feel the grief portrayed from all of the characters really depicts the multitude of ways we all grieve differently and at different rates. May is angry, she is so angry that she hasn't had the proper time to grieve for the loss of her brother. She lashes out at everyone and is extremely withdrawn. She slowly, throughout the story starts to blossom out of the isolation she's put herself in, once she meets Zach, who she discovers later is the son of the attorney defending the killer of her brother.

Zach is sweet, sad, and filled with so many responsibilities someone his age shouldn't have to endure. His over worked/work obsessed mother and depressed father aren't the pillars of strength they need to be.

Zach and May were a good pairing. I struggle to use the word couple since so much is left open and the story isn't necessarily about if May and Zach end up together in the long run (I vote absolutely) but the grief and forgiveness that we have to share and accept. It's about the people in our lives that struggle just as much as we do, our friends, family, strangers who feel these same emotions and might be blaming themselves just as much.

I really loved seeing how Zach could release some of that anger for May. How May had not just one outlet, but two. Lucy was a rock for May. But sometimes rocks crumble too..

I feel the emotions this story pulls out of the readers is important. Especially now. I loved all the characters, I got angry at May for being so selfish to others who so strongly only wished to help her. How she didn't see their pain, only her own. But she learns and it's a hard lesson but one that needed to occur.
I loved Zach. Though goofy and some what insta lovey over May, he's good for her. Drawing her out even further than Lucy in the end. That human connection coming alive when they're together.

I also really love Conor and I'm hoping we get more info in him. That maybe he'll get his own story.

Overall, this book was a stunner and I'll definitely be recommending it to others and hoping from more from this author!

This is my first book by Liz Lawson, and it won't be my last. I have read a lot you YA books touching on unspeakable subjects as; rape, bullying, abusive and toxic relationships. I have read books that have touched on school shootings of a murder-suicide and how it has impacted the family they left behind. I am no stranger to reading the topics most are scared to touch.

This book deals with those who survived after one individual kills everyone in a classroom. The book centers on May and Zack, two high school students and classmate of the shooter. May is a survivor, the only survivor from that class and from that very class she lost her twin brother and her best friend, May and her family are spiraling out of control trying to deal with this newfound grief and guilt. Zach is the son of a lawyer who has taken the shooter as her client. Zach and his family has been deemed traitors and have been subjected to vandalism and threats. 'It helps that the pair of them has at least one friend in their corner.

The topic of mental illness is heavy in this book. I wish they covered the shooting more than they aftermath. It would have been nice to know why the school shooting occured or why Zach's mother decided to defend the shooter. The book left me with a lot of unanswered questions, but it was still a great read.

* I recieved this copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion*

This was a tough book to read. Mostly, because if you have kids in school, you can't help but relate. It left me emotionally drained. Warning that you will cry through most of it. It is emotional and follows the aftermath of a school shooting. Still, I would definitely recommend it.

The Lucky Ones was such a heart-breaking read, but it was also an eye-opening one. I'm glad I had the chance to read it.

This story had moments that brought tears to my eyes as well as moments where I smiled and even laughed.

May and Zach are both going through tremendously challenging times in their lives, and I love how the author brought these two together. They seem to be the exact opposite of what the other person needs, but actually they each end up being very needed in the other's life.

Again, The Lucky Ones was very well done.

***I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advance Reader Copy generously provided by the publisher via NetGalley.***

The Lucky Ones leaves me speechless. A poignant, heartbreaking, must read story about the lucky ones, the survivors of a school shooting. It was an emotional and moving read that captured my heart. I cried for the confused, uncertain, grieving survivors like May who were just trying to find a new normal despite the pain and loss. The Lucky Ones is raw, real, and worth every minute it takes to read.