From Goodreads,"From two-time National Book Award finalist Deborah Wiles, a masterpiece exploration of one of the darkest moments in our history, when American troops killed four American students protesting the Vietnam War.
May 4, 1970.
Kent State University.
As protestors roil the campus, National Guardsmen are called in. In the chaos of what happens next, shots are fired and four students are killed. To this day, there is still argument of what happened and why.
Told in multiple voices from a number of vantage points -- protestor, Guardsman, townie, student -- Deborah Wiles's Kent State gives a moving, terrifying, galvanizing picture of what happened that weekend in Ohio . . . an event that, even 50 years later, still resonates deeply."
Goodreads - Kent State
I have mentioned before that I tend to find myself drawn to certain topics in books. I find myself drawn to cancer/illness books, mental illness books, love stories, and unfortunately school shooting books. I think my pull to them is because I'm lowkey trying to educate myself on what to do and what not to do in the event of a school shooting since I'm a teacher. That being said, I saw this book at our book fair and was intrigued by the cover design. (I also judge books by their cover. Don't judge me.) I immediately knew this was a school shooting book just based on the bullet holes and the gun on the cover. It is actually quite fitting that I'm posting this review today because it has been 50 years since these events took place, and this book starts with the events on Friday, May 1, 1970.
Kent State is the confusion tale of the events that unfolded from May 1, 1970, to May 4, 1970. The story is written in a prose format that rotates through multiple voices and viewpoints. Wiles writes to tell the story the best as possible of what happened on that fateful Monday in May.
I usually start with a positive about the book, but I have to start with a negative. This book is relatively short and written in prose. It shouldn't have taken long for me to read, but it took a couple of days because I was literally avoiding the book. The writing style is absolutely terrible. I'm perfectly fine with having prose. I'm perfectly fine with having multiple narrators. But this... this book had 5 or 6 narrators who were unnamed and unlabeled. The only way I knew that someone different was speaking was because the font changed. This book was an absolute hot mess. I wish the narrators would have been given names, even if they were fictional names so that a connection could be made. I feel like they were just spitting out the minor details they each knew and it was all slammed together to make a book. I would have really loved an in-depth story about Kent State and not just hearsay from a variety of people who were involved.
I had never heard of Kent State until I picked up this book. I definitely had to do some research to get a background on what happened. I would have loved to have seen this book with multiple characters all sharing their viewpoint and what they felt and saw. I think taking an approach similar to Alan Gratz's Allies or even Ellen Hopkins' People Kill People. Both books have multiple perspectives but still fit in a solid story format that allows more details and feelings to be attached to each character. I would definitely consider reading a book on Kent State. I think this book was a good introductory of the event, but not enough details were given.
Overall, I was kind of disappointed in this book. I was really excited to read a book about an event that I knew relatively nothing about, but it was a scattered mess of nameless narrators. I sadly have to give this book 1 star. I wish that it had been a story instead of just characters having a conversation with each other. I think people who have good background knowledge of Kent State will enjoy this book, but a young adult would definitely need some kind of background information to really grasp the whole story.
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