Are You Still There

By: Sarah Lynn Scheerger

Narrated by: Elizabeth Evans

Gabriella Mallory, AP student and perfect-daughter-in-training, stands barefoot on a public toilet for three hours while her school is on lockdown. Someone has planted a bomb, and she is hiding. The bomb is defused, but the would-be bomber is still at large - and everyone at Central High School is a suspect.

The school starts a top-secret crisis help line, and Gabi is invited to join. When she does, she is drawn into a suspenseful game of cat and mouse with the bomber, who has unfinished business. He leaves threatening notes on campus. He makes threatening calls to the help line. And then he begins targeting Gabi directly. Is it because her father is the lead police detective on the case? Is the bomber one of her new friends? Could it be her new boyfriend, with his complicated past?

As the story unfolds, Gabi knows she is somehow connected to the bomber. Even worse, she knows she is part of his plan. Can Gabi reach out and stop him, or will she be too late?

©2015 Sarah Lynn Scheerger (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Compelling

Grade: A-

ARE YOU STILL THERE has been on my Amazon Wish List since I read very early reviews, do I was thoroughly delighted to receive an ARC copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review. Sarah Lynn Scheerger not only met, but exceeded my expectations.

After a bomb scare in her high school, overachiever Gabi Mallory is recruited to become a hotline peer crisis worker. For the first time in her life, she becomes friends with an eclectic group of kids, instead of the usual nerdy brainiacs in her AP classes. In doing so, she realizes a lot of her classmates are hurting, and at least one may be plotting phase 2 of his violence. For the first time she's interested in boys and dating and not one, but two boys are interested in Gabi.

Scheerger gave Gabi an authentically strong, insightful voice. She's a good kid, with a healthy voice of fear she doesn't always mind. She's imperfect, but her heart is most always in the right place. Like most high school seniors, she thinks she knows and can handle a little more than she can. Most of the other characters, including the bomber, are complex and multilevel, although most of the characters judge and stereotype those different from them
. Interspersed between Gabi's chapters are the bomber's manifesto chapters where I realized he or she wasn't a monster, but an individual reeling from a friend's suicide, bullying, and despair over bystanders' inactions and perceived lack of empathy.


Part mystery, part coming-of-age ARE YOU STILL THERE? kept me guessing until the end. My first two guesses weren't merely red herrings, but characters with important stories whose words and actions fit their characters. Plot wise, Gabi did seem to receive a large percentage of calls from people she knew well, considering the school had 2000 students, but that's easy to overlook to keep the hotline calls relevant and interesting. I didn't buy into a scene at the end about her father's reaction about his safe based on his sterling behavior as a cop (thus is minor and not a spoiler) and a thought the hotline would have more adult presence during the calls, particularly after a bomb had been planted on the school. My criticisms are more detail picky than indicative of plot holes and I understand why Scheerger went in the direction she did. They didn't detract from my enjoyment of this wonderful novel.

THEMES: school violence, suicide, peer counseling, bullying, cliques, depression, outcasts, perfectionists, college application process, parental pressure, first boyfriends, siblings.

ARE YOU STILL THERE? is an important story about empathy, outcasts and noticing others--when they're hurting and when they aren't. I'd love to give a copy to every middle and high school student, parent and teacher.