This Is Where It Ends. Marieke Nijkamp. 2016. 288 pages. Sourcebooks Fire. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] Reading this book will leave you shell-shocked. It is haunting. It is emotionally draining. It is real. This Is Where It Ends is told over the course of 54 minutes. But in those 54 minutes, you experience an entire lifetime. The day starts as quietly as any other in sleepy Opportunity, Alabama, with the local high school welcoming students back to a new semester with a school-wide assembly meant to motivate and encourage the student body. Things quickly turn when students and faculty find themselves trapped inside with a lone gunman, intent on leaving his tragic mark on their community. The story is told from first-person accounts of several students. There’s Autumn, the junior whose brother Tyler is the gunman. There is also Sylv, Autumn’s girlfriend. Tomas is Sylv’s twin brother, who finds himself and his friend Fareed as one of few students in a position to save everyone trapped in the auditorium. Claire, whose brother Matt is trapped inside, is Tyler’s ex-girlfriend. Interspersed within are accounts of the shooting found on various social media platforms from people connected to those inside.

The Christmas Cats Fear for the Deer. Constance Corcoran Wilson, Gary McClusky, ill. 2015. 36 pages. Quad Cities Press. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of author.] The Christmas Cats Fear for the Deer is the fourth installment in The Christmas Cats series, a fun and festive collection of books centered around cats that are great problem-solvers. In this book, the Christmas Cats are called on to help usher the deer – who keep eating the bark from trees – out of harm’s way, which will surely come at the hands of pesky hunters. I read this with my 7-year-old and we both loved it. I was initially concerned about the references to hunters and wondered where the story would take them. However, I was impressed at the author’s ability to tackle what could be a sensitive topic in an age-appropriate and comical way. My daughter particularly liked the reference to the North Pole, Santa Clause, and his reindeer, which made everything more familiar.

Awake. Natasha Preston. 2015. 336 pages. Sourcebooks Fire.  [Source: ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] This was a tough book to read, but it was just as tough to put it down. Awake follows Scarlet, a teenager who has led a mostly normal life, except for the fact that she can’t remember anything before she was 4 years old. With the introduction of an attractive, attentive new boy in school, Scarlet’s world changes quickly and she starts questioning her past and the people in her life. The story is filled with the angst you’d expect from teens – juggling friendships and jealousy, trying to make “mature” choices based on inexperience and new love. But the underlying question of Scarlet’s past and how it may force its way into her present is inescapable. She’s constantly questioning the motives of those around her and ask she begins to question her family more directly, she starts to unravel some of her truth.

Bittersweet. Miranda Beverly-Whittemore. 2014. Broadway Books. 381 pages. [Source: Blogging for Books.] How far will you go to fit in? What secrets will you seek, and what secrets will you keep?  Those are the perennial questions that Mabel Dagmar faces as she finds herself immersed in the lavish lifestyle of her wealthy roommate for a summer. Mabel is a simple girl from Oregon who has the (mis)fortune of rooming with wealthy, party-girl Genevra their freshmen year of college.  Theirs is largely a relationship of indifference, wherein Ev tolerates Mabel’s presence while mildly hiding her disdain for her.  A turning point is Ev’s 18th birthday, in which she follows family tradition by donating a Degas to their college (how disappointing that it wasn’t The Met).  Mabel’s invitation to the celebratory affair marked the first time the two women have any real personal interaction. The result is Mabel’s invtation to vacation with Ev in her family’s estate, Winloch, in Vermont.

What You Left Behind: A Novel. Samantha Hayes. 2014. 32o pages. Crown Publishing.  [Source: ARC provided courtesy of Blogging for Books.] I like to think of myself as someone who can forecast a book’s plot twists. I’m usually pretty good at sifting through the little details meant to foreshadow, instead using them to sniff out the real culprit in a story.  Thus, reading What You Left Behind was a challenging read for me.  The author wove an interesting story with intricate details that constantly threw me off. The story starts with a motorcycle accident that kills a young homeless man in sleepy Radcote. With the discovery of a suicide note, it appears that Dean has become the first in a new rash of teen suicides to rock the town’s residents. The reader is then introduced to Lorraine, a police detective supposedly on vacation to visit her sister Jo and nephew Freddie.  Instead, she is compelled to explore the suspicious circumstances behind Dean’s death as another teen is found dead of an apparent suicide just days later.