Scan barcode
A review by tamchronin
Mercy Rule by Tom Leveen
5.0
So. I finished this at about 2pm. It's been a good four hours. And I am still recovering.
I'm not going to give any spoilers. Instead, I'm just going to say that you should read it. Like all of Tom Leveen's works, this is a page-turner I couldn't put down, and time completely passed unnoticed while I was absorbed in the lives of the kids, and my own memories of what it was like to be that age.
It's a timely book, which once upon a time would have been remarkable since the subject matter is a school shooting. Now, it's just a sad commentary on society that no matter when this book had come out, there'd be a mass murder, a school shooting, fresh in our mass consciousness.
It's easy to be trite and preach down to kids when trying to teach a less on to teenagers in prose form. I've seen so many of those I hesitate to read YA novels about social issues, but Tom has never let me down. It's not about the lesson. He writes with compassion and a real feeling of "been there, done that, and listened to people who are in the trenches right now." He treats teenagers like human beings, not "characters" in his books. They're real. They're flawed. They're me. They're you. They're all of us. And we're all hurting, and all groping in the dark for someone to cling to, someone to save us, or someone to help. And that's what I love about his YA novels, every last one of them.
And that's why this one killed me. It hurt so much to read, but I've needed a catharsis since the last shooting on Valentine's day, and this book delivered.
Read it. Trust me. You want this book.
I'm not going to give any spoilers. Instead, I'm just going to say that you should read it. Like all of Tom Leveen's works, this is a page-turner I couldn't put down, and time completely passed unnoticed while I was absorbed in the lives of the kids, and my own memories of what it was like to be that age.
It's a timely book, which once upon a time would have been remarkable since the subject matter is a school shooting. Now, it's just a sad commentary on society that no matter when this book had come out, there'd be a mass murder, a school shooting, fresh in our mass consciousness.
It's easy to be trite and preach down to kids when trying to teach a less on to teenagers in prose form. I've seen so many of those I hesitate to read YA novels about social issues, but Tom has never let me down. It's not about the lesson. He writes with compassion and a real feeling of "been there, done that, and listened to people who are in the trenches right now." He treats teenagers like human beings, not "characters" in his books. They're real. They're flawed. They're me. They're you. They're all of us. And we're all hurting, and all groping in the dark for someone to cling to, someone to save us, or someone to help. And that's what I love about his YA novels, every last one of them.
And that's why this one killed me. It hurt so much to read, but I've needed a catharsis since the last shooting on Valentine's day, and this book delivered.
Read it. Trust me. You want this book.