Reviews with content warning for Addiction - That's Not What Happened

This book made me sob dealing with its themes of trauma, grief, guilt, and taking control of your own narrative. This book has some cool stuff to say of how important is the truth in the end. Is it better to give people that lost loved ones a sense of comfort? Or to be true to who people actually were? I Fall somewhere between where I think it’s fine to let people believe what they want but not at the cost of hurting someone else like in this book with Kellie. However, a favorite theme of mine from this book is Lee discussing how she hates that once people are dead they’re put on a pedestal and people refuse to be truthful about their flaws. This dehumanizes them and is unfair to their memory and to people still alive. That’s always been something I dislike as well. Last but not least I thought the book was building to a dark turn with Miles and I’m very glad that wasn’t the case in the end. This was a good, but triggering read so beware.

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ammr8973's review against another edition

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slow-paced

4.25

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brookey8888's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

First of all we love an asexual queen!! So that being said there is a ton of different representation in this and I can’t speak for most of them, but I didn’t find anything wrong with it. As for the story it doesn’t really focus on the shooting but the aftermath of it. Which I thought was important. Also it never gives the killer a name or the spotlight which I also thought was good. I thought it was interesting how religion played apart in this. I don’t think this is like the greatest book or the greatest book about a school shooting but I think it is well done.

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legalplanner's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In a world of lockdown drills, post columbine, and more school shootings in recent years this is an important take on the narrative of survivors.

We meet Lee and the “six” on the third anniversary of the school shooting, when the youngest members are heading closer toward graduation. We follow Lee and her struggles to reconcile what happened that day and how the current narrative has been harmful.

Trigger warnings for this novel:

Gun violence, death, school shootings, anxiety attacks, panic attacks, PTSD, and mild trauma.

I went into this knowing that it would be a heavy read and it was every bit of heavy that I anticipated. In my small town in Indiana a school shooting happened and watching those survivors grapple with the same things Lee was sometimes got hard because I understood how her mother was feeling when trying to understand Lee.

The diversity in the characters both on a sexuality spectrum, “disability”, and class structure was amazing and very much amplified that schools are diverse areas students spend most of their time in and that not every victim is the same.

The writing style as a letter to be published to tell their side of the story was brilliant and the individual characters stories allowed you to see deeper into their personalities without having to switch points of view which I feel would have been hard in this novel.

The way guilt both as a survivor and as a bystander was very well done. You understand why Lee, Eden, Denny, and Miles all have guilt regarding the narratives of that day. While none of them are necessarily as heavy as Lee’s there’s is equally as important.

I urge you as a reader (if you’re looking for reviews to encourage you) don’t take my 5 star review as overhype. This was well done. Focusing on survivors, guilt, and how the issues surrounding mass shootings/school shootings are important but many. I also implore you to read this as there is zero shooter glorification which I think is important.

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bobisthecoolest's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Being from Europa, I have no idea what these characters went through and wether this book and the character’s stories are accurate, so I will just be speaking from a reader’s perspective. The story was interesting, the diversity was great, but half of the characters were just unlikeable; Lee shouldn’t have pushed people as much and Ashley was just a straight up bitch imo.

I did love the ace rep in this book.

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bookcaptivated's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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