A review by videosnyper
Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Completely devoid of anything remarkable or thought-provoking. Give a Boy a Gun is basically just a make-your-own-school-shooting exercise without any desire to flesh out the characters or world in any way. The use of interview excerpts from the witnesses and shooters' family members as a way of establishing how the shooters were perceived by others sounds clever on paper, but the result is miserably boring and leaves you feeling absolutely nothing for any of the characters. The inclusion of real-life journalistic excerpts from real-life shootings in the footnotes alongside Strassers narrative was likely an attempt to tie the book to reality, but it was just extremely distracting. I can't recommend this to anyone, really. There's not a single redeeming thing about it that I can think of at the moment. It tries way to hard to be an engrossing narrative yet educational at the same time and it all comes of as extremely condescending.