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 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.

Intense, beautiful, heartbreaking, relevant. powerful and important. Thank you for this book about survivors that I didn't know I needed to read. Thank you netgalley!

Not for the faint of heart, this book details the aftermath of a school shooting and why someone was spared over another. It will rip your heart out. It feels like an extremely important message to be read.

This is a very emotionally charged story. It will leave you thinking about the characters for days afterward. Liz Lawson has written a story based on a school shooting and what happens after the television crews leave. How lucky are "The Lucky Ones" who survive the shooting, yet wake up every morning after reliving the event in their nightmares. How a single day can polarize a community and leave no one unaffected. Read this book and share it with your friends. It's worth a really heavy discussion at your next book club meeting.

The Lucky Ones by Liz Lawson is an expertly executed standalone novel, focusing on survivor's guilt and the repercussions of feeling as though you are responsible for another's demise. I have never read a book like this. It is intense, emotional, soul wrenching, mind shattering, heart piercing, semi-depressing, and a complete sob fest. But it is also INCREDIBLE. It is so smartly written, so perfectly described (almost to the point of being suffocating), so completely unique to today's culture. This book is a POWERHOUSE, and (deservedly so) it is going to make massive media waves come release month. Absolutely everyone needs to read this book. No exceptions.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley. This is my honest, unbiased opinion.

This was a really great read! I really enjoyed reading this book, would definitely recommend. This is a good book for all ages.

This is an important book and one of the first ones I've read that successfully takes us into a world broken in the aftermath of a school shooting. I've read several other books that broach the topic of school shootings from various points of view, but this book seems to have found a way to let the reader experience some of the guilt and responsibility of living through a shooting and wondering why. I happen to know someone who was a junior at Columbine back on April 20, 1999. Many, many years later and there are still remnants of emotional scars. Since then there have been literally thousands of students who have lived through school shootings. Mostly, society forgets about them, doesn't really consider them victims. But they are. And this book is a reminder that they are. I recommend The Lucky Ones to everyone. Read it.

May's twin brother, Jordan, was killed last year in a shooting at their high school. Now she's just barely managing to get through each day, her parents are AWOL, and the kids at school treat her like a pariah because she's just so angry that she has managed to push everyone away. Zach's mother is an attorney in charge of defending the shooter, and her taking that case has made his life a living hell. His girlfriend broke up with him, his dad is depressed and spends all day in his room in his pajamas leaving Zach to take care of his little sister, and someone has been painting insults on their garage and leaving threatening letters in their mailbox. May and Zach meet through their only remaining friends, and the two should probably be mortal enemies but somehow they manage to make each other feel more seen than they have in a long while. But will their survivor's guilt and the secrets they both carry destroy the fragile relationship they both desperately need?

This book was really well-written despite the horrifying and heartbreaking subject matter. As the author says in her note, this is the world we live in now where our kids deal with lockdown drills and school violence throughout their childhoods. And while the victims are usually counted as those whose lives were lost, the ones left behind (the "lucky" ones) deal with long-term effects, too. The story is told in a relatable, casual way which is a perfect tone for YA, but it doesn't at all play nice or try to sugarcoat anything. These kids are in PAIN, and that absolutely comes through, but so does the beautiful support that exists for them from friends (Lucy and Connor are the best), school staff, and families (although both sets spend a lot of time majorly sucking before they figure it out here). I also love the hope that comes through by the end and the message that living isn't a betrayal of those who died...it's NOT living that would let them down.

What a sad, strong debut by Liz Lawson!

**Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children's for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.""

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

“The fact is: I’m a SURVIVOR.
I’m the leftover.
The lucky one.
The only one in that room who lived.”

Pulling myself out of this book, the world seems like such a different place to look at. I was sucked in from the very beginning, drawn onto an emotional rollercoaster that kept going, even after the last page. I’m not sure I can fully articulate what this book taught me about grief, loss, human interaction, and our society in today’s gun-violence-filled world.

So what is this book about?

Nearly a year ago, a school shooting occurred at Carter High School and rocked their community and those around them. One kid entered the band room, leaving many dead and one survivor. That survivor is May, and she still can’t wrap her head around the fact that she survived that day when her twin brother, Jordan, did not. A few towns over, Zach is just a normal kid who has had to grow up too fast thanks to his absentee parents. The effects of the shooting have spilled over into his life as well, first when Carter was shut down and half of the school sent to his own, but even worse when his defense attorney mother decides to take the case and defend the shooter. Suddenly, Zach is a pariah and hated by proxy. Both May and Zach are tackling their own demons, and when they meet, they finally feel like someone understands how they feel. But young love can’t cure all things, and sometimes things have to get worse before they can get better and allow the healing to begin.

This story, by nature, is a deeply emotional and raw journey from beginning to end. Dealing with intense grief after losing her brother, survivor’s guilt, and more guilt of her own over how she left her relationship with her brother, our main character May is in a very dark and scary place. Anger has become a constant companion for May as she pushes back against professional help, family, and friends. If readers are looking for a touching journey from grief to healing that is full of hugs, therapy, and reaching milestones, they will not find it here. This book takes a hold of May’s darknesses and runs with it, pulling readers into her anger and guilt until it becomes a living thing. For some, this journey could be triggering.

In our other main character, Zach, we find a different kind of emotional journey. After his mother takes the case to defend the shooter, his friends, girlfriend, and community as a whole turns on him, subjecting him to harassment, vandalism of his home, and pushing him to isolation. Like May, his life has shrunk to a few (okay, one) good friends and senior year verifiably sucks. But then Zach meets May, and he thinks that maybe it’ll suck a little less with her. She should hate him (his mom is her enemy, after all), but she can’t and soon a friendship-to-maybe-more begins. They understand each other in a lot of ways, and support each other in others. Yet where other books may have taken this and run with it to a happily ever after of healing, Lawson knows better. What makes this book so great is that it never pretends that this young, teenage romance could fix the deep and raw trauma that our characters, namely May, have experienced.

Lawson takes May’s trauma and lets it speak for itself, showing a realistic and personal experience with PTSD that is surely happening to hundreds of thousands of Americans. In the Author’s Note at the end, Lawson addresses our nation’s gun violence epidemic head-on, yet it is the story and May’s experience that makes the most impact. As readers dive deeper into May’s story, they get to experience the real ways that her trauma has paralyzed her, from panic attacks in crowded places, fear of loud noises, flashbacks, and the inability to complete mundane daily tasks with ease. A very specific PSTD is being experienced by school shooting survivors in our country, and May’s story gives a look into just how debilitating it can be to move on with your life.

Yet this story doesn’t just stay on this one topic. As we go deeper into the story, Lawson addresses some issues and questions that flesh the story out and make the reader think. We see the affects that absentee parents have on children, we see characters that have struggled with addiction and others that have suffered from depression. We see what it means to let people in, even when it feels like the last thing you want to do. We see that grief can be selfish and messy and mean, and that it’s okay and not okay all at the same time. But mostly, we see that while there is no one road to healing, none of those roads can be walked alone.

If I’m being honest, I found myself angry at this book at times because I wanted it to fit in a box. Why was May being so stubborn and not letting people help her? Why couldn’t she see reason and start her healing when she’s been given so many opportunities? But Lawson makes it clear that this book isn’t about making readers comfortable with May’s journey, Zach’s journey, or anything else in the book. It’s meant to be messy and real and in doing so, it speaks volumes about journey that the next generation is going through as they grow up to fear school.

Reminder: trigger warning for gun violence, depression, PTSD, and bullying.