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A review by wildflowerz76
Accidental by Alex Richards
4.0
Johanna's life is a bit stifling. Her mom does in a car accident when she was a toddler and her dad left her, so she's being raised by her maternal grandparents. They're perfectly nice, but they don't mention Johanna's mom. Ever. So when her dad contacts her after over a decade of silence, she decides to meet him. But when he tells her that her mom did not die in a car crash, but was actually killed by an unsecured gun in their home by Johanna herself, she's at a loss on how to deal with that.
Johanna is a character that's very easy to empathize with. The author does a fantastic job showing her distress at everything she's being asked to deal with, as well as giving us a romance that doesn't overshadow the main plot and supportive friends who will do anything for her.
This is being touted line a YA story on gun violence in schools, but that feels like a vast exaggeration to me. The actual gun violence here wasn't in a school and even when they talked about it in school in the story, it had nothing to do with school shootings. In fact, there wasn't even really an opinion on gun violence other than: Gun violence is bad. Even the disagreement with Johanna's classmates didn't seem to have anything to do with guns, but rather graphetti. This was a good read, bit it could have done a lot more to talk about the gun problem.
Johanna is a character that's very easy to empathize with. The author does a fantastic job showing her distress at everything she's being asked to deal with, as well as giving us a romance that doesn't overshadow the main plot and supportive friends who will do anything for her.
This is being touted line a YA story on gun violence in schools, but that feels like a vast exaggeration to me. The actual gun violence here wasn't in a school and even when they talked about it in school in the story, it had nothing to do with school shootings. In fact, there wasn't even really an opinion on gun violence other than: Gun violence is bad. Even the disagreement with Johanna's classmates didn't seem to have anything to do with guns, but rather graphetti. This was a good read, bit it could have done a lot more to talk about the gun problem.