Review: The Ones That Got Away

tl;dr: a very touching story about love BLOOMING from the ashes of tragedy

The Story:

The Ones Who Got Away centers around a tragedy that happened 12 years before this book begins: the most deadly school shooting in America. It happened in the tiny fictional town of Long Acre, which is outside of Austin, TX. There’s a documentary being filmed about the incident, and so several of the survivors are coming back to talk on camera (or off camera) and be interviewed by the documentarian.

Olivia Arias and Finn Dorsey are two of those survivors, and this is a bit of a second-chance romance for them, as they sort of secretly dated in high school. In fact, they were “nearing second base” in a janitor’s closet when the shooting began. When the two heard the gunshots, Finn left the closet looking for his actual date, and he always has regretted this because he thinks it led Joseph, one of the gunmen, to Liv. However, Joseph didn’t shoot Liv, he just left her locked up in the closet. Instead, his mark appears to have been Finn’s date, Rebecca.

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