Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Review: Bang

Bang Bang by Barry Lyga
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Lyga doesn't disappoint. A bit preachy about gun violence and how Muslims are treated though, and I wonder if teens can see through that? This is when I miss working in a high school library--I would love to talk to teens about this novel. Teenage Sebastian is living with regret--when he was four he shot and killed his baby sister. Of course, it was an accident, but he still lives in the same house and the same town (why, parents, why???) and he can't escape being THAT kid and living with the guilt. When a pretty (and different) Muslim teen girl moves in over the summer, the two become close friends, creating a YouTube cooking channel that gets a lot of hits, but eventually explodes when viewers figure out who Sebastian is. Suicide figures prominently in this book, as well as vengeance, dysfunctional families, mental illness, and regret.

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