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A review by alyce6d980
Come Sit By Me by Thomas Hoobler
4.0
The boy who shot seven people in the school library is dead. But did his secrets die with him?
Something terrible happened at Hamilton High last year, and those who survived don't want to relive the past. But Paul has just arrived, and gets the same locker that the shooter used. He wants to know what really happened...and you know what curiosity did to the cat.
I was already intrigued by the short synopsis - it doesn't give much information away about the plot or how the story will pan out, but using such an emotive and controversial topic choice meant that this book was bound to be interesting. However, I couldn't really see it having much of a plot. I believed it would dive into the mentality of the mass murderer, understand why he did what he did and that would be all, but there is a lot more going on than just that.
When Paul joins Hamilton High, he joins up as editor-in-chief at the school's newspaper. His first assignment is to interview surviving students at the memorial service for the fallen that is being held at the start of term. It seems to him that all is not as it seems - Cale, the murderer, being able to hold off police and wipe out seven people, all by himself? Something doesn't add up. So Paul decides to start investigating the possibility that someone could have been helping Cale all along...
The novel is split into three parts - Paul's story, Caleb's story, returning to Paul's story for the final segment. The first half of the novel is definitely a slow burner, because Paul needs to settle into the school and start to learn the dynamics between the students, and he also needs to try and retrospectively understand where Cale fitted in to the hierarchy. Early on Paul talks to Cale's only friend, Cecil, and discovers that Cale used to type on his laptop all the time - attempting to understand his thoughts and feelings - and kept everything saved on a USB. This little nugget of information is given at the very start of the novel, but because Cale hid his USB it takes a long time for Paul to work out exactly where it is and how to access it, so a lot of the novel is building up to this discovery.
After Paul recovers the USB, we get to read Cale's deepest and darkest thoughts about the school and the people around him. Cale is utterly illiterate, which means that this section is ritten a bit lyk dis. It's a bit of an extreme turn around at the start, but once you settle into the flow of reading his writing, it's easier to enjoy and empathise with his character. I definitely wouldn't recommend this book if you find it difficult to empathise with villains or bad guys. Because we get to read Cale's innermost wondering, you do feel rather attached to him, and can feel completely and utterly sorry for him for his lot in life. His parents are unemotive, his grandmother dies, he's bullied at school and he's exploited in the worst kind of way. However, if you really appreciate deep, psychological writing, this will be the perfect book for you. I always enjoy novels where I can completely hate a character - have no positive inclinations towards them in the slightest - but then feel it get turned around because of the author's writing skill, and that's something that occurs during this story.
I'm not going to give any spoilers towards who Cale's accomplice could be, but I will say that I did work it out very early on in the novel.
Read the rest of my review here!
Something terrible happened at Hamilton High last year, and those who survived don't want to relive the past. But Paul has just arrived, and gets the same locker that the shooter used. He wants to know what really happened...and you know what curiosity did to the cat.
I was already intrigued by the short synopsis - it doesn't give much information away about the plot or how the story will pan out, but using such an emotive and controversial topic choice meant that this book was bound to be interesting. However, I couldn't really see it having much of a plot. I believed it would dive into the mentality of the mass murderer, understand why he did what he did and that would be all, but there is a lot more going on than just that.
When Paul joins Hamilton High, he joins up as editor-in-chief at the school's newspaper. His first assignment is to interview surviving students at the memorial service for the fallen that is being held at the start of term. It seems to him that all is not as it seems - Cale, the murderer, being able to hold off police and wipe out seven people, all by himself? Something doesn't add up. So Paul decides to start investigating the possibility that someone could have been helping Cale all along...
The novel is split into three parts - Paul's story, Caleb's story, returning to Paul's story for the final segment. The first half of the novel is definitely a slow burner, because Paul needs to settle into the school and start to learn the dynamics between the students, and he also needs to try and retrospectively understand where Cale fitted in to the hierarchy. Early on Paul talks to Cale's only friend, Cecil, and discovers that Cale used to type on his laptop all the time - attempting to understand his thoughts and feelings - and kept everything saved on a USB. This little nugget of information is given at the very start of the novel, but because Cale hid his USB it takes a long time for Paul to work out exactly where it is and how to access it, so a lot of the novel is building up to this discovery.
After Paul recovers the USB, we get to read Cale's deepest and darkest thoughts about the school and the people around him. Cale is utterly illiterate, which means that this section is ritten a bit lyk dis. It's a bit of an extreme turn around at the start, but once you settle into the flow of reading his writing, it's easier to enjoy and empathise with his character. I definitely wouldn't recommend this book if you find it difficult to empathise with villains or bad guys. Because we get to read Cale's innermost wondering, you do feel rather attached to him, and can feel completely and utterly sorry for him for his lot in life. His parents are unemotive, his grandmother dies, he's bullied at school and he's exploited in the worst kind of way. However, if you really appreciate deep, psychological writing, this will be the perfect book for you. I always enjoy novels where I can completely hate a character - have no positive inclinations towards them in the slightest - but then feel it get turned around because of the author's writing skill, and that's something that occurs during this story.
I'm not going to give any spoilers towards who Cale's accomplice could be, but I will say that I did work it out very early on in the novel.
Read the rest of my review here!