Review: Violent Ends by Shaun David Hutchinson

Booklist: What must it be like to know, even tangentially, a shooter who kills 6 teens? This is the horrible realization of 16 young people (and a gun), all of whom have at least a vague memory of, if not a direct link to, highschool junior Kirby Matheson, the strange, quiet “good” kid who kills 6 and wounds 5 of his fellow students one morning at Middleborough High School. Some of the memories are sweet and poignant, others harsh. Many are guilt-ridden sins of commission or omission. Editor Hutchinson has gathered 16 of his fellow YA authors, from Neal Schusterman to Kendare Blake to Trish Doller, to collaborate on a set of perspectives, with each writer challenged to create a different picture of an average teen gone wrong—and the young people who knew him. They have no answers, of course, only insights that may serve as a wakeup call to readers regarding the consequences of their actions or inactions, intended or unintended, on their fellow teens during that difficult time we call adolescence.