"Our struggles teach us how strong we are not."

"ASIT" is a touching story of loss, guilt, forgiveness, and hope. It depicts the journey of Sean, a survivor of suicide loss, and the trajectory his life takes in the ten years after. For Sean, it was making unsound choices that provided him with a feeling of acceptance and dulled his pain, and with this came dangerous consequences.

While the author does a noteworthy job exploring the ugly reality that a loved one's suicide leaves behind, she has an exceptional way of revealing the beauty that stems from forgiveness, not only of others, but also of ourselves. She beautifully pens that it's okay to "let people meet you in the darkness". You are not alone!

While this is classified as ya fiction, I feel it fits better into the na fiction category. With mentions of drug and alcohol abuse, rape, prostitution, and suicide, I would be leery to let a child 17 and under read this.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. ( )

"Our struggles teach us how strong we are not."

"ASIT" is a touching story of loss, guilt, forgiveness, and hope. It depicts the journey of Sean, a survivor of suicide loss, and the trajectory his life takes in the ten years after. For Sean, it was making unsound choices that provided him with a feeling of acceptance and dulled his pain, and with this came dangerous consequences.

While the author does a noteworthy job exploring the ugly reality that a loved one's suicide leaves behind, she has an exceptional way of revealing the beauty that stems from forgiveness, not only of others, but also of ourselves. She beautifully pens that it's okay to "let people meet you in the darkness". You are not alone!

While this is classified as ya fiction, I feel it fits better into the na fiction category. With mentions of drug and alcohol abuse, rape, prostitution, and suicide, I would be leery to let a child 17 and under read this.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily. ( )

With a sense of honesty and sheer rawness, this read takes a teens' inability to cope with a terrible past.
It does include alcoholism, death of a loved one, suicidal hints, and nods toward rape, but none of it is graphic and the material is handled appropriately for the intended audience.

Sean has given up. After the tragic death of his mother and living at odds with an alcoholic father for the years following, he can't seem to overcome the nightmare and decides to end it all. Years of trying to escape didn't do anything, so he turns it around and heads back to the place it all happened. He's determined to stay anonymous, but from the very first moments, fate doesn't seem to play along with his plans and has him facing people of his past. This only makes the pain that much worse, and he can't wait for it to end.

I'll just start with saying that this is a well-written read. It's told from the main character's point of view and stays close to his thoughts and feelings. There are flashbacks, and these are marked at the beginning of the chapter to keep things from growing confusing. The entire thing stays concise and hits just short of two hundred pages, and, yet, the author still manages to cover quite a bit of ground. The tale digs deep, flows naturally, holds more than a few surprises, and brings the main character across as a sympathetic guy, who has really hit an awful spot in life.

While this one is dark and allows Sean's pain to come across clearly and understandably, it also offers hope...and not as a cliche or super sweet miracle. Sean's thoughts hit home and his 'loss of hope' pulls at the heart. It makes for a grabbing read on the character end, but there's even more than that, too.

Much of Sean's past comes in bits and pieces. The reader meets him as he starts his journey to the town he once lived in. His thoughts touch upon things that he's experienced without really exposing what these were. Those, then, come in bits and pieces through flashbacks as he experiences different things in the town. And these experiences hold more than a few unexpected twists. While confusing, at times, this also added the required mystery and tension to make this book hard to put down. Everything does fall together, bit by bit, to form a gripping and satisfying end. I received an advanced copy and although I'm not usually a fan of 'deeper' reads, enjoyed this one quite a bit. ( )