Three youths gang up on Luke on a bus. They are challenged by a bystander, Jason, and a fight breaks out – which ends up with Jason fatally stabbed, and Luke critically ill in hospital.
The book follows what happens during and after, and is told from the point of view of Jason’s father, Luke’s mother, and Emma, a witness on the bus.
For me, the key to this book was the way it was written – the characters are very human, and the emotions are laid out in front of the reader. There’s no over-use of emotions, designed to tug at the heart-strings, but rather a raw emotion – honest and heartbreaking.
Whilst I expected the parent’s stories to be the most important, it was Emma’s which really caught my attention, the sort of person usually ignored in these circumstances, a witness who has to deal with her own decisions, as well as her own life.
In that split second, what would you do?
