Heather Gudenkauf - ONE BREATH AWAY

Book review live on bookshow by Corinna Christopher on 22nd Nov 2012 This well-constructed book is set in the States as you might imagine by looking at the cover of the book. The book explores the issue of school shootings and the impact on one small community. It is told from the viewpoint of five different characters. Mrs Oliver a middle-aged teacher well-loved by all is fearless when the gunman bursts into her class room of seventeen primary school children. She stands up bravely to this strange man waving a gun. Holly the daughter of Will Thwaite is lying in a hospital bed far away at the opposite end of the country. She was involved in a horrific accident and will be taking a long time to recover. As a girl she could not wait to get away from her parents. Now with a daughter Augie and son P.J. she has had to send her children back to their grandparents to look after them. Augie has now been transplanted from Arizona and her mother to the small town of Broken Branch where she is now a pupil at the small local school and in the class of Mr. Ellery. School is just about to start the Spring break when over the intercom is the message “Teachers, this is a Code Red Lockdown. Go to your safe place” Will a local farmer now has the care of his two grand children whom he has only now met for the first time and the responsibilities of looking after them lies heavily. Augie is not at all co-operative but her brother P.J. loves living on the farm. Meg is a policewoman with a young daughter Maria in the Broken Branch school. Divorced and living alone she has recently met Stuart but although at first drawn to him she has now decided to end the relationship. All these various characters end up at the school anxiously waiting to hear what is actually going on and their subsequent stories and emotions form the main part of the book. It is necessary to follow closely the different viewpoints but each chapter is titled accordingly. I did at first think the book was a little disjointed but when finished and viewed overall I decided it did in fact build up the tension quite well and certainly kept one’s interest to the end.