This story of a mass shooting at a rural university explores surprising and interesting questions, like what happens in a marriage when "love can mature into a void"; how in the effort to distance ourselves from pain we can lose the ability to come across as experienced; and how with devastating results, the traumatized and lost make friends with depression "so you no longer have to perceive it as a weakness." I set aside more pressing reading projects to "dip into" this debut novel then I couldn't put it down. I was blown away by the writing and the masterful use of 2nd person. There's never a contrived, sentimental or sensational note although in less capable hands the subject matter lends itself to such pitfalls. An extraordinary debut.
