E.M. Kokie

This was a striking novel, less for the plot than for the author's ability to convey a point of view so entirely opposite to my own and make me empathize. I've read enough history to know that the folks colloquially known as "Preppers" are not necessarily crazy, but I am staunchly on the side of gun control. Kudos to the author for making me really understand and feel the fears of a main character who does believe that the American government wants to take away all guns. I am stunned and show more impressed with how very much I could identify with Bex, who is almost completely my opposite.

The story was compelling and the decisions Bex has to make are heart-wrenching but the whole novel is utterly believable. Bex and the people around her all exist somewhere in the here-and-now. An eye-opening and amazing novel.

A copy of this book was sent to me for an unbiased review. show less

This book draws you right into the mind of Bex, a queer teen from a struggling family in rural Michigan, convinced and obsessed with the imminent demise of civilization and intently training with guns and survival skills. Bex's voice is so distinct, so real, and her perspectives so meticulously described as to feel genuine and understandable (even to a staunch anti-gun person like me). I loved this book and I hope to press it into the hands of many youth, families, and educators. Bex's world show more is complex--her family's poverty and continued grasping at the middle class, the sexism she encounters in her communities and her family, the silences and secrets she doesn't quite understand and see in time in her family members, the powerfully appealing illusion of control that survivalist messages and gun rights advocates propagate, having to hide her sexuality from her family and the depth of her involvement in the local survivalist 'gun club' from her girlfriend are handled with such precision and such an assured understanding of Bex's perspective. The prose is gripping and the ending is breathtakingly stark, completely unsentimental, yet honest and compassionate, even hopeful, by the last chapter. I loved this book. show less

Heartbreaking and deeply emotional, Personal Effects tugged at my heart-strings and left me in a pool of tears and mush by tackling a sensitive issue and narrating the story in Matt's voice.

Awkward Matt who is still grieving his brother by using his fists. Frightened Matt who could barely stand his ground with his abusive father and pass Junior year. And finally, Gritty Brave Matt who could finally take in the secrets his brother kept from him all these years and unclutch the tight grip his show more dad had on him and be a Man. And as bonus, even get the girl of his dreams.

A coming-of-age novel I'm not ready to forget yet. show less

Good solid story that is largely successful in portraying the prepper/survivalist community with more nuance than one normally encounters. Bex is sure that the big meltdown/disaster/government takeover is right around the corner and she's determined to be prepared, even if her family isn't always onboard. So when a survivalist organization opens up near her home, she's intrigued, if wary. Despite the way the write up makes it sound, for most of the novel, this is solid realistic fiction, a show more teenage girl dealing with the problems of her life – the girl she's dating, the brother she dislikes, pressure to fit in, money struggles, etc. She just happens to be a girl whose primary interest is guns & survival, which I suspect is not all that rare in many parts of the country. That is one of the things I appreciated about the story, that, while her paranoia does slowly become more pathological over the course of the story, the author takes care not to treat Bex's beliefs and fears as ridiculous and she resists the urge to force Bex into a complete belief-system 180 in the final parts of the story. I also appreciated seeing an LBTQ character who was – gasp – somewhat conservative! Perhaps more libertarian than conservative, but it's nice to see a portrayal that belies the idea that being queer automatically makes you a staunch liberal.

The major weakness of the story is Bex's parents, who just don't seem well drawn. While I'm perfectly prepared to believe in a mother whose obsession with femininity & fitting-in borders on the pathological and a father who thinks a daughter is an annoyance taking away from his relationship with his son, which is how Bex seems to see them, neither character really rang true for me. Bex is insistent that her parents favor her brother, but I don't see any actual evidence of them doing so until the climax of the story. And the fact that we never really understand why Bex's mom is so obsessive about femininity & social graces makes her continual harping seem like a caricature.

Finally, I have to address the cover on the galley. I'm assuming they haven't changed it since the title is coming out in a few weeks, but maybe they will consider changing it on the paperback. The main character, Bex, is clearly described as someone who wears baggy clothes, someone whose gender people are sometimes unsure of. While the girl on the cover isn't wearing skin-tight jeans, they are in no way baggy and are clearly feminine – there's a thigh gap, for pete's sake. I'm sure someone in some marketing department decided that having a gender-non-specific character on the front of a book would be off-putting to readers, but we're talking about a character who prefers to hide her body and there's a sexy curvy bum on the front cover. Not cool.

This is a solid title that should be in most YA collections. It has enough adrenaline to appeal to reluctant readers and the many details about firearms will certainly draw in many young readers. show less