The school shooting itself is a terribly painful subject. That afternoon cost them not just siblings but their best friend – and the hope for something more.Īll that is enough to get the heart aching but there’s more. Given their unique situations – a young man acting out his emotions through bad behavior and a girl despised for someone else’s actions – they have had no opportunity to find replacement friends. Into all that heartache comes the loss of what Skye and Jesse had. Her mother has gone into a deep depression, unable to care for herself, much less Skye. She was close to Luka but society tells her he was a psycho, a sociopath unworthy of her sorrow. Skye is not only a young woman who experiences endless persecution wherever she goes, she, too, is trying to work out the best way to deal with the death of someone she loved. Would age have given them a more mature fraternal relationship? Did he not try hard enough to win his brother’s love? Had it been inevitable that they would clash or had Jesse done something to set that off? They had only been kids when the shooting occurred. He also has to wonder how much of the blame for their bad relationship lies with him. Not dead, but for sure not anywhere near him. He mercilessly picked on Jesse and now Jesse is figuring out how to mourn someone whom he kind of wanted gone to begin with. His older brother had been a star athlete, good looking and popular and a total ass. For example, Jesse is confused and hurting. Not only is it about a painful subject, the novel itself is peopled by folks in lots and lots of pain. Someone wants Skye gone and they are going to great lengths to make sure she gets the message. Looks like he’ll have to try harder, though. Granted, his defense looks an awful lot like stalking since he lurks in the shadows of wherever she is, hidden inside his hoodie. He isn’t happy to have her back after those betrayals but as he watches her tormented by people who weren’t even affected by the events of that afternoon, he can’t help but try and defend her. Skye took off with no goodbye, leaving him alone with his grief. Not only did his older brother die in a school shooting, his best friend’s brother was one of the shooters. Jesse went from golden boy to troubled teen in the blink of an eye. The place where her brother’s legacy is the only thing that defines her. The state deems her an unfit guardian and Skye is forced to live with her Aunt Mae in the town she fled. Because just as Skye thinks her time of penance was ending, her grandmother has another stroke. But nowhere near as hard as what is coming. What followed was three years of living with her grandmother while working out a penance in the public eye for something she had taken no part in. Luka, her brother, had been killed by the police and Jesse’s brother had been killed by the school shooters. Because what followed was the nightmare of Skye Gilchrist learning her brother had been part of a three-man team that shot up their local high school. The wonderful, incredible afternoon when her friend Jesse (Jassar) Mandal moved their relationship from friends to first date was utterly destroyed by what happened next. There was nothing ordinary about that day it had been both the most glorious and most horrific of her young life. It’s an emotional tale that will keep you thinking about it long after you put the book down. Kelley Armstrong’s Aftermath takes us into the dark world of school shootings, shattered friendships and redemption.
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