Bought this for the library. It was an emotional rollercoaster to read, but I loved how the author built the characters.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

"We Can be Heroes opens with “Welcome to Bell, proud home of Bell Firearms for two hundred years, and where five months ago, the teen heir to the Bell fortune took his father’s guns to school and killed his ex-girlfriend, Cassandra Queen.” —WE CAN BE HEROES PODCAST

Told in alternating chapters between Cassie, Beck, and Vivian as they work to get revenge against Bell Firearms and the town for sweeping Cassie's death and everything that led to it under the rug. There are also transcripts of the We Can Be Heroes podcast interspersed throughout the book. I enjoyed this format and thought that it worked well for telling this story. It let you get a good look at each of the three girls while providing an alternate point of view through the interviews conducted on the podcast.

This is an important topic today but it could be triggering for some people. I would recommend trigger warns for gun violence, school shooting, domestic violence, death, and mentions of sexual assault.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I think anything about gun violence is important to read these days. I loved the idea of women reclaiming their lost power and changing from being victims. I also thoroughly enjoyed the use of Greek myths as the inspiration for the murals. "

McCauley does it again! This title is hauntingly beautiful yet makes you want to scream. The characters are well developed and the story flows naturally. I will be a fan forever!

When Nico Bell pulled the trigger of that gun, so many lives were changed: but the problems were there long before that day. Told in third- and first-person narration, in prose and verse, We Can Be Heroes is the story of Cassie, killed in a school shooting by her ex-boyfriend; her two best friends, Beck and Vivian, and a town split down the middle. Bell is a town named for and financed by Bell Firearms; the Bell family has a sociopolitical grip on the town because they write the checks that keep it going. Nico Bell, heir to the Bell company and poster boy for toxic masculinity, kills his girlfriend, Cassie, in a murder-suicide when she tries to escape their abusive relationship. Beck and Vivian, Cassie's best friends, never much liked one another, but bond over the chance to give Cassie the voice she didn't have in life by painting murals featuring women from Greek myths: women whose voices were lost, taken by monsters and men. A podcaster focuses on the case as the murals achieve viral status on social media, and Cassie's story unfolds, shedding light on ugly shadows in the town and the Bell family. Cassie appears as a ghost, bringing Beck and Vivian together and to guide them in their mission; her story is told in first person verse.

Changing narratives and playing with narrative structure - prose, transcript, and verse - keep this already arresting story moving. I loved the use of Greek myth to tell Cassie's story; women's stories through history. We Can Be Heroes explores grief and loss, trauma, and unchecked privilege. Small moments, like Cassie's excitement over music released after her death are poignant, even when played for a chuckle. A subplot involving Beck and her grandfather adds further depth. A thoughtful look at real issues facing teens today that highlights the importance of listening to women's stories.

This was an interesting take on school shootings. One tied in with domestic abuse in teenage relationships. But a story where girls reclaim their strength. A story where women don’t have to be the victims. I loved the interwoven Greek mythology references, and I’m always down for Medusa reclaiming her power not as a monster but a woman. I loved the way the two main characters grieved the loss of their best friend, I loved how they decided to handle the situation. The podcast was a bit superfluous, but I liked that it helped promote what Vivian and Beck had done. Overall, I think my students would love this story!

This is great book with themes that young adults/teens will be grappling with. It examines gun issues, abuse and relationships, grief, friendship, and the struggles of women. The topics are important to consider to all ages, and could be upsetting at times, but I think this would be a good book for young adult collections.

WE COULD BE HEROES is by far one of the best YA contemporaries that I've read. Split into four perspectives (Beck and Vivian in prose, Cassie in verse, and Merit Logan's podcast in script format), it tells the aftermath of the murder of Cassie Queen, a teenage girl shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend Nico Bell, heir to the Bell Firearms company. It covers gun violence, domestic abuse, and other relevant issues with a deft hand and carefully crafted manner. It never felt like characters or positions were being strawmanned, mainly because most of it rang very true to the real-life responses to school shootings, gun violence, and domestic abuse cases. It also never felt like it was leaning too much into a blanket "guns always bad" message, which I sometimes see pro-gun-control stuff and it also never felt preachy.
My one complaint is that sometimes Beck and Vivian didn't feel too distinct as characters, mainly since the formatting was split up so much, and Vivian in particular felt like she could have been fleshed out a bit more.

This. Book. Just wow. There are a couple scenes toward the end in particular (which I won’t spoil) but which absolutely wrecked me. The relationships between the characters are so incredibly well done. The friendships between the girls. The relationship between Beck and her gentle, not to be pushed around, strong but silent type grandfather. He’s my favorite literary grandpa EVER.

Then. The layering! The way the story wove together truths about domestic violence and powerful snapshots from Greek myths and the story of two girls grappling with crushing grief in a town refusing to face what killed their best friend. The clips from the podcast focused on exposing violence against women. The Latin expression that was so precious to Cassie that comes up again and again through the story: collige virgo rosas.

I just.

I feel like there’s no way that I can review this book and do it justice at all. It might be the best book at weaving all these things together simultaneously and telling a story that bears the weight of the important topics it explores without being dominated by them.

I loved this book. This is going to be the book you hear about from me for like the next year, so if you know me in real life, probably go ahead and read it now. Ha! Really, though. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book that felt as gripping and as weighty as this and had the moving writing style to back it up, too. Like maybe since I read THE BOOK THIEF? I’m not sure. I can see why McCauley is compared in the back cover copy to Laura Ruby, who wrote BONE GAP, which was also a densely packed, lyrical, moving book.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

The elements at play here are not especially common in fiction: graffiti and true-crime podcasts. We have a tragedy in a town with an injustice that the town would rather ignore. So Beck and Vivian respond in a big, unavoidable way. With the addition of a podcast picking apart the stories that the people in power are insisting upon and it's a town on the verge. McCaughley is asking us to consider some big questions: gun culture and rights, community responsibility in the face of a tragedy. The heart of the story, though, is much smaller: broken and grieving girls who have things to prove or that they are desperate to escape. Girls who are angry and terrified and utterly trapped by grief. We have a ghost at play who isn't entirely necessary but it works over all.

We Can Be Heroes is one of the best books I have read this year, hands down. It was beautifully written and emotional and everything I would want from a book with this premise.

This story follows the aftermath of a school shooting where Cassie Queen's abusive ex-boyfriend entered her high school, murdered her and then killed himself. It takes place in the town of Bell where they only really have two things they're known for, Bell Firearms (the biggest employer in the town and owned by the family of the shooter) and an annual sunflower festival held in August. The story is told in alternating perspectives- Cassie's two best friends Beck and Vivian, a woman named Merit Logan running a podcast titled We Can Be Heroes, and Cassie's perspective as a ghost.

In this book I really enjoyed the different perspectives, I felt like it helped readers piece things together. While we slowly have past revealed to us we also get to read about the coverage on Cassie's death in the podcast when the media takes notice of Bell. I loved learning about the friendship dynamic between the three girls from each point of view.

This books talks about gun violence and domestic abuse in a very graceful yet concise manner. The author didn't sugarcoat things but they also didn't talk about anything in a super graphic manner, which I thought was perfect.

I think probably the only thing about this book that I would like to change is for Vivian's character to be explored and developed a little more. I felt like in comparison to Beck we didn't know very much about her other than she was going to go to college and isn't anymore. It's a shame cause I like her character quite a bit but I would've liked to learn more about her.

I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it. I think it's an important book for people to read and that it's one that I will definitely reread.

4.5 stars

We Can Be Heroes is a book I finished in a few days I was so absorbed. I became possessed by Beck and Vivian's rage. By the way that the system failed Cassie. This multiple POV story sheds light on the ways on some of society's failings. The ways that money greases palms and can have disastrous consequences. We Can Be Heroes not only presents a story about justice and friendship, it also questions who exactly is protected by the laws. I was so emotional reading We Can Be Heroes.

This book was a very emotionally hard read, but also such an important one. There were so many conversations happening in this book that are happening today, but also still need to happen regarding subjects such as gun violence, domestic abuse, grief, victim blaming and more (trigger warnings for all of these subjects). The story begins in the wake of a school shooting where a jilted abusive ex-boyfriend had entered the school and murdered his ex and then also killed himself. The community at large, which is a community built on guns (the largest employer being the shooter's family, which manufacturers the very firearms he used), has essentially forgotten the victim and thinks of the shooter as a "good kid who made a bad decision." Cassie's friends are trying to pick up the pieces of their own lives (one of them also having been shot by the shooter) when they discover that Cassie herself is haunting them - so they decide that they must have vengeance, or at least hold those who were in some ways just as responsible for Cassie's death as her ex, accountable.

I really enjoyed the fact that not only do we get Beck and Vivian's perspectives (Cassie's friends), but also a perspective from Cassie that slowly reveals some of the things that happened in the past, and the perspective of a podcast that is covering all the events happening surrounding Cassie's death once things kick into motion. This book goes deep into the subjects I mentioned as well as nuances we often see in the media surrounding these types of events (such as those in positions of authority not wanting to follow protocol because they don't want to damage the accused' future). It also really shows the journey of Beck and Vivian as they try to process their grief and find a way to live without Cassie. The way McCauley wove this book and brought all the different threads together was done so well and I believe this books contains an important conversation that needs to keep being had.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC copy of this novel in exchange for my honest review.

I was a little unsure with this book at first. The writing didn’t catch my attention right off the bat, and I shelved it and read something else before coming back to pick it up.

I am so glad I did. There’s so much greatness in this one. It tackles hard issues, but I thought the author handled them with grace and poetic dignity. With such a difficult topic as gun violence—and suicide, domestic violence, and even police corruption—I was impressed. The dynamics of the three friends—and my goodness, the words written from Cassie’s POV especially—made me cry more often than not. The chapters are all really short and propel the reader through the story at a great pace. Highly recommend.

Wow, is ths powerful! We Can Be Heroes definitely is in the front-running for the Printz, and I hope this finds the audience it deserves, as Kyrie McCauley is an outstanding writer.

The book opens months after a fatal school shooting involving a girl and her ex-boyfriend, who was the shooter. Two people, Vivian and Beck, who were only friends because they both knew the murdered girl, grow close as they paint murals memorializing what happened.

There's a bit of magical realism, podcast transcripts, and part of the novel is in verse--yes, it sounds like a lot but it works SO well! An incredibly powerful and moving novel, this is a prime example of young adult literature at its best. Very highly recommended.

4.5 stars

Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley for an advanced copy of We Can Be Heroes to review! Honestly, I was hooked by the cover for this one. It just looks stunning. I am happy to say that the story inside does this gorgeous cover justice!

This story is told by three narrators, Beck, Vivian, and Cassie, with snippets of the podcast between each of their chapters. Between the three of them, we can piece together what happened to Cassie and what sparked the debate about gun violence in their town. What I appreciated about this book was that we weren’t made to actually live through the school shooting itself. We get the gist of what happens, and that’s enough for the story.

I also appreciated the fact that this book draws a correlation between domestic abuse and gun violence. It also points out the fact that teen girls that come forward about domestic abuse often aren’t taken seriously because they’re teenagers. They’re told “it’s just a phase” or that it isn’t that serious because they’re young. However, abuse signs can be seen early and can often be just as deadly (as we can see in Cassie’s case).

The only reason this isn’t getting a full five stars is because I could see through the mystery aspect just a bit. However, I think if the right cast is selected, this could be a phenomenal audiobook with the podcast angle. So if you’re an audiobook listener, definitely keep an eye out for that!

All in all, I think this book was really well done and sheds light on a topic that definitely needs to be talked about more. From the characters to the message, this is definitely one that you’ll want on your radar.

This is one of the most powerful books that I have ever read. I loved the mixed media use in this book with narrative writing, podcast transcripts, and art to share messages. All of it was used extremely well to tell the tale of Cassie in the aftermath of a relationship gone wrong. As Beck and Vivian are still battling their own demons due to the school shooting, they are learning to rediscover who they are with a piece of their heart missing where Cassie filled it. This book is a must read for all high school students transitioning into their adult world.

“We Can Be Heroes” is a podcast dedicated to ending violence against women, and holding those responsible for it accountable. Cassie Queen, murdered at school by her abusive ex-boyfriend, is the perfect subject for the current season of the podcast. We Can Be Heroes by Kyrie McCauley tells Cassie’s story, through transcripts of the podcast, but mostly through her two best friends and Cassie herself.

Beck is very familiar with grief and loss, but losing her best friend in a shooting, that could have been prevented, hits different. She is pissed off at her town and how they failed Cassie, but mostly she is pissed off at Bell Firearms. The manufacturer of the gun that killed Cassie, the number one employer in their little town, and most importantly the company that Nico Bell, the ex-boyfriend who so easily took his father’s guns and killed Cassie and himself, was set to inherit. She wants to take Bell Firearms down, and she is going to do her very best to do just that, even if her best is to cover their billboard with a mural of Cassie.

Cassie and Nico weren’t the only ones to take a bullet that fateful day in March. Vivian spent weeks in the hospital recovering from the gunshot to her leg. When she finally leaves the hospital, everything has changed. She can no longer run track, causing her to lose a scholarship and effectively ending her chances at attending the University of her dreams, but more importantly her best friend Cassie is gone, and there has been no justice for her murder. When Vivian stumbles upon Beck painting a mural over the Bell Firearms Billboard, she pretends to scold her, but really Vivian is happy to see someone trying to hold Bell accountable.

Beck and Vivian, Cassie’s two best friends, who got along for her even though they had nothing in common. After the school shooting, and Cassie’s funeral, they avoided each other, but now that they are back together, they are in for a surprise. Cassie is back, she is haunting Beck’s van, and she is finally ready to tell her two best friends the whole story of what happened between her and Nico. The three friends come up with a plan to hold Bell Firearms accountable, and share Cassie’s story with the world. Beck’s mural will be the first of six. Six murals of women from mythology whose stories resonant with Cassie’s. Six murals of women who were controlled, threatened, or sacrificed by a man.

We Can Be Heroes isn’t the average school shooting story. It is a beautiful story about grief, friendship, and intimate partner violence. Every character has such great depth and emotion, that you find yourself fighting, crying, and celebrating right along with them. These three friends are all so different from one another, that anyone reading should be able to relate to at least one character. McCauley has created a call to action with this novel; a call to protect women from gun violence. A must read for teens and adults alike.

Nico’s obsessive, manipulative romance with Cassie came apart in the spring of senior year, so he brought a gun to school and shot her, her best friend Vivian, and
himself. Now Cassie and Nico are dead, Vivian’s leg wound has canceled her track scholarship, and Beck is riven with guilt that she skipped class that day. Nico was the son of Steven Bell, (after whose family the town is named,) and who is the owner of Bell firearms, which exerts control over every aspect of their small town.

Cassie loved the theater, so Beck and Vivian create murals all over town of women characters who were attacked or victimized by men or by communities in Cassie’s honor. Putting them up on social media,attracts the attention of Merit Logan, who takes up Cassies’s case on her podcast, upping the anxiety of powerful men in Bell. Told in the narrative voices of Cassie and Vivian, on podcast transcripts, and in Cassie’s poetry as she returns as a ghost to encourage Beck and Vivian to find some justice and closure, this is a powerful look at violence against women and what can be done to combat complacency and complicity. EARC from Edelweiss.

This book was so beautifully written. Each character was their own person and each one has a solid voice. It made each chapter come alive on this journey. That being said please make sure to check out the trigger warnings for this book because there are a lot of them. But even with those this book was so important and so worth the read.



Go Into This One Knowing: Rape, School Shooting, Alcoholism, Domestic Violence, Cancer, PTSD