LOCKDOWN, published in 2018, foretells an attack on a middle school. Sadly, it is more relevant today than it was then. It is constructed from short chapters built from an interwoven time line for each of the thirteen main characters. Several of them detail the backgrounds of the characters. The final chapters are very short, building to the surprise climax.
Most of the characters are middle school students but a few relevant staff, community, and family members are included to fill out the story. Most are introduced at the beginning of the book. One of them had suddenly disappeared a few months previously. Her presence and disappearance had a strong effect on the school.
Linda McDonald was the new principal at Guadalupe Middle School in central California. Her mission was to improve the school, which served lower income people, mostly Latinx, from its low performance levels. Career Day was an annual event which brought in speakers from the area to help students think about their future lives. The first hour was devoted to having the students think about and write about their dreams for the future. The second was for them to consider the practical aspects of attaining that dream.
Linda’s opening speech began “This school is a tapestry” and spoke of how they all had their own history and story which were interwoven into the entire group.
The book opens with Brandon in his room playing a violent game on his console a little after midnight. His anger and fear are real.
The last chapter tells the aftermath of the lockdown, how it affected the people involved.
There is a question and discussion section at the end of the book.
TIDBITS:
Little did he anticipate the doors would open to a lowly school custodian. Limpiador simply meant one who cleaned, but his old English dictionary told him that janitor had to do with doors. The janitor was a doorkeeper. And the word custodian? In either tongue, that had to do with custody, with possession. With guarding.
Change in school to modern technology: chalk boards to video screens, shared textbooks to electronic tablets. Shift in attitudes school had been a place to incubate hopes and dreams. Parental hopes had turned into parental expectations, and the warmth of the incubator felt more like the focused burn of a magnifying glass in the sun. He first noticed it in the ball games.,,, Mothers and fathers screamed at their players, not in appreciation but in command, even condemnation. Did no one believe that childhood was a time for joy? That soccer was a game, not a test of a child’s moral strength?
What was the use of writing about some pinche dream job? The men he knew took whatever work there was....Might as well dream about being Spiderman or the Arrow.
No: what a man hoped for was a life that was sufficient.

I received a review copy of LOCKDOWN from LibraryThing. ( )

Woohoo! Approved on Edelweiss for LRK's new book! :D

This novel did take me a little bit to get into the writing style, but in the wake of what has been happening the last decade or so with the school shootings this novel really hit close to home with the fear of sending our kids off to what is supposed to be one of the safest places for them. I enjoyed how the author wrote the view point of the novel, and this is good eye opener for what our kids deal with when there is a school shooting. This was not a thing when I went to school and cannot even imagine this. Thank you to LibraryThing for the free copy. ( )

Disclaimer: I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"A school is a tapestry of threads." Nowhere is this more true than Guadalupe Middle School. This has already been a tough year for the students and staff members: a student disappeared, gang violence, and abuse. Through shifting perspectives and timeline, the secrets of all are revealed.

From reading the book jacket, you know that something is about to go down on Career Day. As I've mentioned in the past, school shootings are something that absolutely terrify me and are not something I am comfortable with reading about. I was very nervous about this book. I would not read it before bed. I tried (unsuccessfully) to keep myself from reading a lot all at once. I know what effect this subject had on me, so I practiced self care.

What I wasn't prepared for was the page turning suspense of this novel. Everyone from the janitor to the prettiest girl in school to the handsome English husband of the principal has a reason to feel the fear. Is it them? Is it their secret that is going to bring on this lockdown? I was obsessed with finding out the ending and when I did I was not disappointed.

This is one of those crazy books that I want to just shove in people's faces and yell at them until they start reading. It is so good and so thrilling. The writing is fabulous. Each character's perspective has it's own unique voice and vernacular. Each character has a different style of describing their past and present. The author uses language that is accessible enough that you don't have to stop and look up every other word while at the same time phrasing things in the most perfect and elaborate way. I highly recommend this book to anyone who like suspenseful thrillers and dynamic characters. ( )

I sat down to start this book, expecting to only read a couple of chapters before bed, and literally did not put it down until the last word was read four hours later. It's quite the thrill ride. I give it four stars rather than five only because the first few chapters lacked enough background and introductory information; I don't like to wait quite so long to get a feel for the characters.

As for recommending this book to others, I absolutely do, with one caveat: if you don't like stories told from multiple point of views or with multiple shifts in time, you probably won't enjoy this one. It's a great book, but it's definitely not linear. ( )