{"id":7486,"date":"2023-12-20T17:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-12-21T01:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/?p=7486"},"modified":"2024-02-01T17:42:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-02T01:42:44","slug":"how-we-ricochet-teen-book-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2023\/how-we-ricochet-teen-book-review\/","title":{"rendered":"How We Ricochet – Teen Book Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jasmine Sov<\/span>, age 17<\/p>\n

How We Ricochet<\/span> <\/em>by Faith Gardner<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Betty Lavelle\u2019s life is going alright\u2014she\u2019s doing well at her internship, her older sister Joy is working at a caf\u00e9, and her mom just started a new job. So when they all go to the mall to pick up some clothes, they\u2019re not expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen.<\/p>\n

Then someone opens fire…<\/p>\n

After the mass shooting, Betty knows the three of them are lucky to survive\u2014but their wounds aren\u2019t physical. Within days, formerly assertive Joy refuses to go out at all, completely changed from the vibrant spirit she used to be. Meanwhile, Betty\u2019s mom throws herself into gun safety activism, appearing on news channels and attending protest after protest. Some days, it feels like she cares more about gun safety than she does her own daughters. Wanting to know how to spot the signs of future acts of violence, Betty seeks out and befriends the brother of the shooter, Michael. But the effects of the shooting are lasting, and as time goes on it becomes clearer and clearer that nothing will ever be the same.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sad that this book is incredibly timely. It states many relevant truths, like how it shouldn\u2019t be normal for shootings to be reported on the news on a regular basis. I initially thought that How We Ricochet would be from the perspective of someone who loses a loved one in a mass shooting, but instead it focuses on the effects on a family of survivors. In different ways, all three women seek to prevent this kind of event from happening again on varying scales. Joy, who gets severe PTSD, refuses to leave the house and insists that she can no longer trust the safety of other spaces. Betty becomes obsessed with finding out the \u201csigns\u201d of a mass shooter and befriends Michael to try and spot those patterns to protect her family. Their mom becomes an outspoken gun safety activist, spending most of her time attending gun safety organization meetings and only talking about gun control (even in conversation with complete strangers). It\u2019s a poignant look into how traumatic events affect people in the long run, although I found it a bit more difficult to connect with Betty. If her personality traits and interests before the shooting had been elaborated on further, it might have been easier to understand her character arc throughout the book.<\/p>\n

4 stars of 5 stars<\/p>\n

Find this book in our catalog:\u00a0How We Ricochet<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Catalog Number: YA FIC GARDNER,F<\/span><\/p>\n

329<\/span> pages<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jasmine Sov, age 17 How We Ricochet by Faith Gardner Betty Lavelle\u2019s life is going alright\u2014she\u2019s doing well at her internship, her older sister Joy is working at a caf\u00e9, and her mom just started a new job. So when they all go to the mall to pick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":7492,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[120,54],"tags":[161,159,160],"class_list":["post-7486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-teen-reviews","tag-perseverance","tag-shooting","tag-tragedy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2023\/12\/58884717.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ZwbD-1WK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5638,"url":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2020\/what-i-want-you-to-see-teen-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":7486,"position":0},"title":"What I Want You To See — Teen Review","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"April 11, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Review by Jasmine Sov, 14 What I Want You To See\u00a0By\u00a0Catherine Linka Winning a full-ride scholarship to California's top art school previously seemed like a crazy, awesome, happily-ever-after for Sabine Reyes, but it's not all it's cracked up to be. 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This book is fit\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Teen Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Teen Reviews","link":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/teen-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4139,"url":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2017\/a-dogs-purpose-teen-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":7486,"position":3},"title":"A Dog’s Purpose — Teen Review","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"October 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"review by\u00a0John Chon, age 14 A Dog's Purpose\u00a0by\u00a0W. Bruce Cameron \u00a0\u00a0A Dog's Purpose was a step outside of my normal genre, and it felt like a breath of fresh air. 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Not most teen books are about this topic. This book does a fair job with it, balancing it out with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/teen-reviews\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2018\/06\/that-thing-we-call-a-heart.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3277,"url":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/2016\/the-roar-teen-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":7486,"position":5},"title":"The Roar — teen review","author":"Teen Blogger","date":"November 3, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Review By John Chon, grade 9 The Roar by Emma Clayton Summary: In the book, The Roar, people live in a dystopian world, where they live inside of walls to stay away from radioactive dust. The entire planet was destroyed because people were trying to kill savage animals. The story\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/category\/teen-reviews\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/18\/files\/sites\/18\/2016\/09\/roar.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7486"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7494,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7486\/revisions\/7494"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pasadena-library.net\/teens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}