Review of LOCKDOWN by Laurie R. King

Prolific author Laurie R. King has an immense talent for bringing her novels into the lives of readers. While reading LOCKDOWN, I felt I lived through its events and through the present and past lives of its character populace—yes, vicariously, but so vividly!

LOCKDOWN is the story of Guadalupe Middle School in tiny Central California farming community San Felipe, but its reverberations stretch also to the Midwest, Mexico, and New Guinea. Guadalupe could be a school almost anywhere, and because its students, staff, administrators, and parents are so realistic, they could be us, our neighbors, our family and friends. The events at and around Guadalupe are both joyful and horrifying, both hopeful and horrid—such is real life, is it not?

Lockdown is probably the scariest word that school students and employees can hear over the intercom. Having been through more than a few of them myself, I know the uncertainty, fear and sometimes out right terror those announcements can bring. In King's story, a career day at a local school goes terribly wrong, and during the mass panic and confusion there are too many people to blame, too many questions with no answers and too much grief and sorrow to process. Scary because it's all too real