I keep reading these Zuiker Press books because I'm interested in the topics, but I'm always turned off by the purple prose and the heavy-handed writing. For instance, in this one, a survivor of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting talks about her two best friends who were killed in the tragedy, but changes their real names to "Heart" and "Soul." Why? To protect their identities? To deter fact-checking? Or to let the the story include several "heart and soul" puns? Sadly, it seems to be the last one.

Like all the other entries in this series that I have read, this one says it is a graphic novel by the young person who is the subject of the book on the cover and title page, but the fine print on the verso indicates it is written by TV producer Anthony E. Zuiker of the CSI franchise. Is he the one adding all the cheese to whatever portion the kids are contributing? ( )

The combination of a first person narration by a young witness to the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida illustrated by seasoned artists in the comics industry is stunning both visually and emotionally. Lauren Elisabeth Hogg, who was a fourteen-year-old freshman at the school on February 14, 2018, gives her autobiographical account of her childhood, her experience of that day in which two of her close friends were among the seventeen murdered, and the emotional aftermath that led her to take political action. Her story is as powerful as the memoir of a combat veteran. ( )