Student Activists Derail a Favorite School Celebration

It’s Lock-in night. The school doors are closed and students roam free in the school for the night. For most it’s a time to try to make dreams come true like falling in love, winning a sports event, or finding a friend. This evening that many look forward to is a chance for Marisa, an eco-activist, and her friends to try to get their environmental demands met.

Marisa and her friends chain themselves to the exit doors refusing to let people in or out until their list of 30 demands are met. These range from banning plastic straws to saving an island. It would be one thing if the protest went on one night, but Marisa and her group won’t give up. As the protest drags on, the other students react in anger, but some begin to listen.

This book, told in the third person, has a very large cast of characters. This is both positive and negative. We get to experience the emotions of a range of people, but we don’t get really in depth emotionally with anyone except possibly Marisa.

While this was an interesting exploration of believing in something and acting on your ideals, I thought it went on too long and began to become less believable over time. I found the pace slow. It was difficult to stay interested. Still, it’s an interesting concept.

I received this book from Harlequin for this review.

CIS's legendary lock-in hits an unexpected speed bump in the form of Marisa, who uses the opportunity to stage a protest aimed at forcing the school, and community, to take steps to fix the environment.

The story definitely kept me interested. I was especially impressed with the way the author was able to balance the different perspectives. It was not, despite my initial thoughts, confusing to follow and I found myself pleasantly surprised by just how much each character developed by the end of the novel. I also enjoyed how the characters intersected over the course of the story.

While I know reading typically involves some suspension of belief, I had trouble with several aspects of this story in that regard. It took me out of the action several times. I also found the ending to be pretty abrupt and wanted a little more for the story to feel complete.

Thank you Inkyard Press and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I hadn't read any books of this author before, so I didn't know what to expect, but I quite liked this! The writing style was beautiful, it felt very serious but appropriate for what was happening. The intrigue was fun too, I liked seeing the links between everyone and seeing it all unfold.

At the Central International School, they have a lock in every year where the high school students spend the night together at the school. This year, one student, Marisa, plans a protest. She gets a few students to join her in chaining themselves to the doors, and literally locking everyone in the school. She does this to get a list of demands completed by the school, which involve preserving the environment and stopping the destruction of the oceans. Throughout the protest, students and teachers have to find a way to either comply with Marisa’s demands or find a way to escape the school.

This story was quite intense at times. There were some dangerous moments for the students locked in the school. Marisa had made provisions to make sure they would have food and supplies, and she had also removed all tools from the school so no one could break through the chains.

I was reminded of lockdowns at my former school while I was reading this book. Though the students weren’t dealing with an active dangerous threat like a shooter, they had to adjust to being held hostage by one of their peers. They were relatively safe, but there is always an element of fear in the unknown, when you don’t know how someone will react to certain things or any kind of accidents. There was loads of this kind of tension in this story.

I really enjoyed this book!

Thank you Inkyard Press for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

CIS’s annual lock-in night is what all CIS high school students look forward to. There are food trucks, games, ball pits, social gatherings, and yes, the elusive party all under the watchful eye of school staff. However, this year, this lock-in is NOT what any of them asked for when a student stages an eco protest over protection of the ocean reefs, locking herself and her friends to every entrance in the school’s facility. Demands must be met by both the school and community or they aren’t opening the doors.

This just wasn’t good. I almost DNFed it quite a few times, but ultimately kept plowing on. There are far too many characters for the reader to wrap their head around, and even by the end of the book, I still didn’t quite have all of the characters fleshed out in my mind. Adding on top of the vast amount of characters was the fact that perspective changes happened every other paragraph and it became cumbersome to navigate whose perspective we were reading through THAT often. My other complaint was the simple fact that it felt like absolutely nothing was progressing for almost 3/4 of the book. It eventually picked up and became moderately interesting, but not enough for me to feel like I didn’t waste my time reading this.

I wasn’t sure what to expect going into We Didn’t Ask for This. I was very pleasantly surprised. I read my first Adi book last month. After reading this, I know I need to read all of his works!
This story is told from one all-knowing POV, but has a huge cast of characters. Thankfully, they are all introduced slowly and with a great background, so I had no trouble keeping up with who was who. I loved the one POV. It gave you little hints or glimpses of what was to come after all of this was over. That really elevated the story for me.
These students go to a private school who has a lock in for high schoolers once a year. This year, Marisa decides to stage a protest during the lock in. She is an avid snorkler and diver, and hates seeing the coral reefs slowly dying off. The kids are stuck in the school for a whole week. Four of them are chained to doors.
Marisa has a list of 30 demands she wants met before she lets everyone out. All the kids have connections – parents are celebrities or ambassadors or huge sports stars. She is banking on one of them being linked to the Lokoloko resort – the main place she wants shut down.
We Didn’t Ask for This isn’t just about Marisa though. Like I said, there is a huge cast of characters – 10 or more. You see them form bonds, friendships, and relationships during tough times. That gives you hope these relationships will last well beyond when this is over. All of the characters had very distinctive voices and actions. This helped to tell them apart. I want to applaud Adi because I think it’s very hard to one, have that many characters in a novel, and two, have them all have distinct voices! He did it so well!
This was a quick read. I know my dates read doesn’t reflect that, but yall, my kid refused to let me read this week. The 30 mintues to an hour a day I got to read I read about 10%-20%. The pace was great and it kept me hooked! I had to see how they were going to get out and what demands ended up being met!
I highly recommend if you are a fan of YA contemporary or Adi. I’m definitely going back to read the rest of his works!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Title: We Didn’t Ask for This
Author: Adi Alsaid
Genre: YA
Rating: 3 out of 5

Every year, lock-in night changes lives. This year, it might just change the world.

Central International School’s annual lock-in is legendary -- and for six students, this year’s lock-in is the answer to their dreams. The chance to finally win the contest. Kiss the guy. Make a friend. Become the star of a story that will be passed down from student to student for years to come. But then a group of students, led by Marisa Cuevas, stage an eco-protest and chain themselves to the doors, vowing to keep everyone trapped inside until their list of demands is met. While some students rally to the cause, others are devastated as they watch their plans fall apart. And Marisa, once so certain of her goals, must now decide just how far she’ll go to attain them.

Alsaid writes quirky characters that I like but can’t always relate to. Which is fine. Everyone is different, and I like reading about people different from myself. The writing is solid, as is Alsaid’s writing in other books of his I’ve read, but one thing made this fall squarely on the unbelievable side of things: a teenager is holding a bunch of kids hostage in a high school for a week, and the cops aren’t involved.

Even taking into account cultural differences—this story is set in an unnamed international location—this is so far-fetched as to make for a stumbling block I hit against roughly every three pages as I was reading it. The cops aren’t involved—and the parents who are all wealthy and important people—are okay with that? I find that highly unlikely, and if the basic premise of a story breaks the “rules” of the world the story in set in, well, that destroys the author’s credibility in my mind.

Adi Alsaid lives in Mexico City. We Didn’t Ask for This is his newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Inkyard Press in exchange for an honest review.)

I have to admit it was strange reading a book about a lockdown everyone was excited about in the middle of our current situation. This was a readable, entertaining, diverse book with some believability issues. Central International School Home of the See Cucumbers and the world elite’s children. It was kind of like Breakfast Club on steroids. If Molly Ringwald were to chain herself to the doors protesting aqua net destroying the ozone layer. Well and these kids were here by choice not because they were in detention, OK well maybe it’s really not all that much like Breakfast Club. The story does however revolve around a cast of very diverse characters. The party planner, the improv lover, the female athlete, the girl wanting to fit in, The quiet boy, and the activist. The school was international, set in a undisclosed location, so all the students came from different countries with different cultures and different expectations. This was the part of the story I really enjoyed. The narrative bounces around and is told in third person. It was really easy to follow and kept me engaged throughout the book. I liked getting to know each of these characters and found them each to have their own issues, personality, and voice. I would have honestly been just fine if this is what the story was about a bunch of kids enjoying A night of freedom and fun. But NO Marissa had to go chain herself to the doors along with several others and change everything. Marissa was an environmentalist and had a laundry list of items that she wanted met before she would allow people to enter or leave the school. Now I am not against trying to do what’s best for the environment I recycle, I use reusable grocery bags, I carry around a metal straw, and so on. However I’m not certain a high school night of fun is the best place to conduct this act of activism. Also the logistics were a bit problematic. There were windows that could not be opened? Locks that could not be picked? There seem to be no way to get in to the school and a 17-year-old girl had covered every contingency. So while I appreciated the message, I didn’t necessarily like it in this book. I think this book could have stood on its own better without it. A good book that could have been better (in my humble opinion).

This book in emojis 🏫 🔐 🌍

*** Big thank you to Ink Yard Press for my gifted copy of this book. All opinions are my own. ***

Engaging and well told. Refreshing to see teenagers take a stand for something even if they about the wrong way. Definitely worth a read so pick it up and enjoy. Riveting. Happy reading!

I loved the international school setting and this story just bolted out f the gates for me. Maybe it's my "stay at home" attention span but I ended up very confused as to who was who after a while. There are like 15 main characters and the reader really has to work to keep them straight. So, this is a mixed review- I like it and was confused through most of it at the same time.

This was one crazy ride into the dynamics of an international school!

3.5, rounded up because of so many merits in diversity, ecology and especially all the work for planning this thing.

Marisa wants to protect the environment and save the reefs, for that she joins force with some other student and sabotages the yearly event of lock-in night, when their whole school is supposed to spend the night together in fun activities. Marisa makes it honor the name, though, by locking herself to the exit and preventing anyone from leaving before her demands are met—the most important one, to save the reefs. The students didn't ask for the situation, but a few gradually see themselves align with Marisa, wanting her to succeed.

Not an easy read, but surely it was even harder to write. Marisa isn't the only main character and we happen to get the point of view of a lot of them, actually. In an organized mess, we go rounds through students and teachers, getting to know them and their limitations, getting to see how the real lock-in protest defies their nature and make some grow, others crazy.

To be honest, Marisa was actually among the ones whom I liked less. It's hard to pick my actual favorite, but some were even more pleasing to follow, like the outsider Celeste who just can't find a friend in the new school, or the partier-in-chief Peejay, who just wanted to give a secret party for the students and make his brother proud. Actually, Peejay grew on me; it seemed crazy that all he could think of was the party but then you do say why he's the charismatic leader of that school.

But behind so many different characters and a good number of events lies a very good planning. And I'm a big fan of good planning. It gave me waves of pleasure to feel it. The complex structure of this story is extremely rare in YA, but it also made the narration very long with very few dialogues. I'm also a fan of dialogues. This is not a book you'll read in one sitting, because as entertaining the twists of the plot are, it's just a lot of minds, a lot of personalities, a lot of thoughts to digest.

And yet, the writer achieved to build round characters, to make sure we the reader can keep up with all them, can live through their eyes knowing the differences from one to another. This book demanded a huge work behind it.

Another great point is life in an international school. I have a friend who used to teach at one in China, and though, of course, it never suffered from an almost-ecoterrorist attack, reading this book took me back to her stories. My sole international experience was an exchange program in college, and I can say the portrayed relationships sounded real to me. In fact, it brought me back a little to those days, living the international community life.

It's important to say you could call this "casting" diverse, but they're all basically very rich; their privileged lives are a part of the point. The writer mentions dishes from other cultures but it's not to a level that will erase the feeling of watching Gossip Girl. I should also point out the writer does seem very aware of this. To be honest, I thought Marisa wouldn't be taken seriously in the end because of that, and I wish it were the case.

As I said, this won't be a read for all. There are huge chunks of paragraph, a good number of characters, and we're all for the green cause, but the book becomes an utopia from the half onward. If the fact no one bulldozed those school's walls for the long period they were locked in already didn't make you frown, the way it wraps up will. Which is a pity for a story so well built.

Regardless of its flaws, I guarantee you won't ever forget this book.

Really interesting and unique storyline that is different to anything else I’ve read before. Thought provoking YA that will stay with you a while after you’ve read it. Also has more fun lighthearted stories intertwined throughout too. Really enjoy every Alsaid book I’ve read so far!
Featured review of this book in episode 2 of my IGTV series.

I received a free digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a easy read! It had a nice balance of tension between each of the characters. I really felt attached to the characters. Not just some of them, but all of them. I really loved the writing style and the pacing. I was very sad to reach the end of the book because I want to know more about the characters and their life after these events.

Thank you kindly to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for this review copy.

I DNF'd at 30 % I was really impressed with the author's ability to seamlessly move from one student point of view to the next every few paragraphs without it breaking up the story. However, at the same time it made it difficult for me to form a connection with or care about any of the characters. The story by the time I stopped already felt like it was dragging and while the overall plot was interesting it was just taking way to long to unfold.

We Didn't Ask for This is a book that I read in about a day. Easy to read, the magic in We Didn't Ask for This is in the balance between characters and tension. Throughout the book, we are able to see the inner workings, thoughts, and memories of each of these characters. In short sections, we get to know each of them - their fears of never fitting in, the family expectations, and their passions. It becomes easy to pick our favorite. But We Didn't Ask for This goes further than that.

Somewhere along the way, I became attached to almost all the characters. We see them evolve, learn lessons, and change. Balanced with heart, We Didn't Ask for This delivers tension. There's a sense not only of time running out, but also our wonder whether Marisa will be successful. The tension pulls the readers through the story. This expert combination makes the pages fly by and I thoroughly enjoyed each one of them.

First of all, thanks to NetGalley and Justine from Inkyard Press for sending me an eARC in exchange for a honest review.
You have to know English isn’t my first language, so feel free to correct me if I make some mistakes while writing this review.


When I started high school the first year, there were two girls in my class from the previous year who had failed the class and had to repeat the year - that's how it works here in Italy. I don't know when and how the topic came up, but later we had learned that just the year before - so when I was in middle school - an occupation had taken place in my school complex.

It had seemed so unbelievable and so cool to me that I hoped it would happen again while it was me who was in high school. I still believed that everything would've changed, I believed high school would've represented a new beginning and I would have left middle school behind - that I would have made many friends, I would have had an adolescence like the one I had seen on TV shows and that an occupation would've brought that kind of magic that seemed to permeate the event even just by its name.

I would've soon changed my mind.


However, CIS' lock-in is not an occupation like the one that took place in my school complex. When it happened in 2002, students left teachers out of school for three days - so I was told - and they did it to protest against the war.


CIS' lock-in is a different kind of event and it occupies the entire campus, teachers "volunteer" to supervise and engaging the kids on a whole series of activities ranging from sports to audiovisual to theatrical ones.
It's the night towards the end of the school year that everyone is waiting for, the one in which all the kids are free to try new things, make new friends or mend up a relationship - maybe you can even find out that your crush on that person is reciprocated and not one-sided as you thought. It's a magical, legendary night where everything is possible.

CIS is an international school, attended by rich kids or diplomats' sons - kids who often attend only for a year, kids who frequently move due to their parent's work and that have already seen half of the world and taken on the inflection of dozens of different accents. This is why you must seize the moment on the night of the lock-in.

All our main characters have high expectations for this magical night.

Amira is a Muslim girl who has abandoned religion and she keeps it hidden from her mother. But that's not the only thing that she hides from her - Amira is an exceptional athlete, capable of breaking down even the gender division of the school decathlon race for which she has prepared so much ... but her mother doesn't know it. This is because there is the Amira everyone knows at school and the Amira who is a different person at home with her mother, who does nothing but repeat to Amira all the things that a girl can't do - all things that instead make Amira even more stubborn in her want to do them.

Celeste is new to CIS - or rather, relatively new since she has been attending school for eight months but has no friends. She hasn't traveled enough, doesn't have an exotic enough accent, it's not even good enough for Americans like her either. Celeste does nothing but think about the life she left in Illinois and in which she was sure she knew her place ... not so much here at CIS.

Kenji is a freshman and if Celeste can count on the support of her parents and feels better at home with them than at school, for Kenji it's quite the opposite. He loves the art of improvisation, he loves to stage infinite possibilities and go with whatever anyone has to say, he loves to say "yes, and ..." just because at home he has to deal with an always serious father who always says no.

Peejay is a senior with a huge charisma that makes everyone listen to him. He was chosen by the prior Partyer in Chief to organize the annual CIS party - the one that has to go unnoticed by the teachers' eyes, the one where you have to hide alcohol and music trying to give your peers an unforgettable party they will talk about for years. Peejay wants everything to be perfect because the role once belonged to his brother Hamish and all Peejay wants to do is organizing a party that is up to the challenge and making his brother proud.

Omar is one of Amira's main opponents at decathlon, or rather the only one. Tall and big, but also incredibly shy, so much so that he always tries to steal a look at the boy he has a crush on from a distance.

Then Marisa is there to wreck everyone's plans.
Marisa - the girl who loves the ocean, loves swimming, loves diving, loves the environment and suffers from seeing it so ruined. What better way to be noticed and to be heard if not blocking all the exits by chaining yourself to the doors along with your friends on the night most awaited by everyone?
The lives of those who remain inside the main building will no longer be the same after that night - not even the ones of those who remained outside, both observing the unfolding of the events and wishing to be inside to be part of whatever is going on inside.

When does a protest begin to turn into a situation in which those present are held hostages?

When does the fine line between activism and terrorism begin to blur?


I feel in conflict with this book because I feel in conflict with the girl who started the whole thing: Marisa.
On one hand, I appreciated her and her strength in resisting under the pressure of everything and everyone - even facing (without batting an eye) the anger shown by the kids she trapped in with her in the main building when it becomes violent and physical - that strength is certainly to be admired, as well as the strength of her beliefs. I mean, I recycle and do everything I can not to contribute to pollution - in fact, I am the first to scold a friend of mine who's a bit careless on that matter - but I understood very well the anger of her peers in seeing her stealing the magic of a night who they have been waiting since the beginning of the school year because she wanted to hit them right where it would've hurt. Just like she felt the last time she saw the reefs.

But it's an implausible story under many aspects - I understand an international school where safety must be top priority, but there can't be a school whose windows don't open and are made of a glass/plexiglas so shatterproof to be impossible to break through - it's not safe. Not that those from my school were, huh - most of the windows faced inner courtyards with no way out and they had slats that acted as a sunshade and when it was so hot you couldn't breathe, the only thing you could do was to punch them so that they slipped off their base and fell down into the courtyard. But at least they opened.

One of the things I didn't like so much were the too long phrases, the talking taken too far. There is a particular point in which we come to know that one of the requests from Marisa's list has been granted, but before telling you what it is, there's a whole discussion on how much Marisa didn't expect that it would even be taken into consideration because the she had put it down without thinking and to hide what she actually wanted to achieve ... and so on for at least four more paragraphs and I was there like "heck, tell me what it is and let's get it over with!"

The book is described as a sort of "Breakfast Club", but in reality we hardly ever see kids interacting with each other - they are all too busy with their personal problems, but this is a positive aspect and it means they are well-developed. Its main flaw is that too much is told when it was supposed to be shown, so you don't really understand why all this sudden admiration - love - for Marisa.
The rest of the students remain in the background, a herd of sheep that only comes to life when Peejay speaks - and do I really have to believe that the teachers managed to keep kids in class working on assignments in the days following the lock-in? Please.

I would have liked to see more reactions, more rebellion or more solidarity, more concrete motivations for which someone has decided to join Marisa or to turn against her - and it will also be a silly motivation, but one of the things I most disliked about this book is that if most of all the other characters' nationality isn't mentioned or if it's done, it's only in passage to point out that, for example, despite being American, Celeste is not automatically accepted by other Americans or that Kenji's family is half Japanese and half English, coincidentally when one of the "bad" guys does something to hinder Marisa, it's stressed that he is Italian. Thanks, huh.

The starting and basic idea of ​​the book is good: diverse characters by race, religion, sexual orientation, family, problems; a serious problem such as the environmental one that is leading the world to increasingly evident and devastating climate changes if we don't change something; kids who have the courage to fight for what they believe in when adults instead stand by and watch or wait for someone else to do it for them.

However, there are logistical and dynamic situations that are implausible: the parents are specks, caught by the mass hysteria or indifferent to the point of accepting that their children can remain trapped inside a school for an indefinite time; students who accept equally passively without rebelling while Marisa dictates the rules on two hundred people closed inside the building.

I don't know, there is something missing from this book or simply out of place - and it's a shame because the idea was good, especially the one of highlighting how environmental activism sometimes quickly turns into terrorism in the eyes of the most.

Perhaps three stars will seem generous to you given that apparently I demolished the book, but I thought about it and I gave a lower rating to books that had more serious "flaws" than this one.

I just finished the book now and I have to say WOW. I’m amazed by this novel. And I’m not sure that I’m able to put everything in words. It’s probably going to be weird. Well, let’s see.

I loved the writing style. It was easy to understand, easy to read and especially it managed to have me glued to the story. I honestly did not stop reading this book, unless you count the time where I had to stop because I had a lecture, but other than that I read this one in one sitting. I also loved the third POV style. It helped me get to know Marisa and the other characters better. And it especially made me understand why Marisa is doing all of this. While I think that she got probably way too extreme and that she might have been able to handle it otherwise I’m still a hundred percent behind her. And yeah, I know that this is a character of a book but many other teenagers are fighting for the world and I think that it’s a great initiative but I also strongly believe that there is no need to take hostages. Even if Marisa didn’t see it as taking her fellow students and teachers as hostages it felt that way for me. So my tip to activists, fight for what you believe but stay true to yourself and don’t go too far, take every win (be it small) and be happy about it. Every win is great! And especially don’t create a dangerous situation. Also: have a back-up plan. But now let’s get back to the review!

I also loved the fact that we got to see friendships happening. Students helping each other, students fighting for each other, protecting each other and so on. I liked this a lot. I really was invested in this story and I’m pretty sure that this is not happening often.

Overall, I think that “We Didn’t Ask for This” is an interesting story and reflects perfectly what Greta Thunberg did and what some teenagers worldwide do. I think that everyone can learn something new by reading this book so it’s not just a book for young adults but also adults. We definitely need to start paying more attention to our actions and finally, we need to take care of our earth and stop destroying it. I think it’s finally time that we encourage younger generations and help them and us get a healthier planet again. Enough is enough!

This was a quick read, but a lot of that had to with the detachment I experienced. I thought a third-person narration style would be a neat change since I get tired of first person being constantly used. But the omniscient narrator felt almost clinical and this was written like a poorly edited research paper. It was repetitive and some paragraphs were reworded to be used two or three times in a row.

The opening was a long information dump of character introductions which came off detached and strange. Marisa essentially organizes a hostage situation, which seems too outlandish for someone that ultimately wants something good. I'm all for a rally for nature and agree something needs to be done about pollution. But this isn't it.

Also, in no way would the school refuse to get the police involved. They have to and should to prevent themselves from getting sued should anyone get severely injured during this "protest". There's no way they wouldn't be able to get the people locked out through a window or some other means since this is a HUGE and highly expensive school and the children come from money. No way would their parents tolerate this kind of scandal and their children to be in jeopardy unless there was a real threat preventing them from getting them out. There are windows and it seems strange there would be so few exits for what I assume is a very large and modernly architectural building.

The real problem might also be that even if this was told in a more engaging style...I don't think I really liked anyone. Marisa wants to do something good in the world and she should use her powers accordingly. She could organize big groups to pick up trash, go to college and get involved in government and help push legislation to save the oceans. She seems like she has a lot of drive (there's even a section that claims she's smarter than anyone else at that school), so be smarter. That would have been a more interesting story than her organizing a hostage situation, though she claims she wasn't holding anyone hostage. Preventing anyone from getting into or out of a building IS a hostage situation.

I’ll say this, I read the first like three pages of this book and almost stopped reading there. I kept going because I was determined to give a thorough review for my blog tour post. That being said, it didn’t really get better for me.

What I did like:
- The peeks into certain characters' lives (Kenji, Celeste, and Peejay).
- The premise of being locked in together. So much potential for shenanigans and romance and mystery and who knows what else.
- The idea of someone standing up for what they believe in without a thought for themselves.

I haaated the third person, omniscient narrator. I don’t even really mind a lot of characters, but the way the narrator bounced around was super hard to follow and give a chance to really delve into all the characters’ mindsets. It got a little easier by the end, but it really wasn’t my favorite story-telling device.

On top of that, the characters all kind of fell flat to me. They all had “their thing” and their problem, but it kind of seemed to skim the surface. With a book that is so character heavy, you really have to have a voice and a fully painted picture for each one.

Moreover, the story just wasn’t for me. When I signed up for the blog tour, I thought the plot sounded interesting (the whole protest side) and like it could be cute (a bunch of unsuspecting teens trapped together). It was not cute. Or spooky. I would have settled for a YA thriller.

While I can respect Marissa (the head honcho who organizes the chaining of herself and others to the doors of the school) for her belief in a cause and a better planet, it just seemed like overkill to me. More like the author was standing on a soapbox for the environment. Not caring what happens to you (and maybe your close friends that you convince to join you) is one thing, pushing it on other people like this, is another thing entirely.

Marissa’s actions were borderline terrorism and the response was unrealistic. I can’t imagine any school board/local government/parents/etc. allowing a bunch of children to be locked in a building for a WEEK. A day or two, maybe, but a whole week? I don’t think so. Not to mention the whole, our windows can’t open thing. This school is sounding more like a prison (and a fire hazard) than a school.

Overall, I was mildly intrigued by wondering how they were going to get out of this mess, etc., but this book just wasn’t for me.

3 stars

I think the idea behind this book was really cool. A lock in that ends up with an actual protest lock in was really intriguing. The environmental factor throughout the book was also really intersting and I was really interested in seeing where the story was going to go. I loved the way that the narration switched between the characters was really well done and I can't remember a book that executed their narration in the same, unique way.

I think my main issues with this book came from the characters. They all had their one "thing" and didn't develop much beyond that. I had a hard time connecting with any of them, which made it hard to truly get into the whole story as it is a character driven plot. There were a few things towards the end of the story as well that resolved a little too easily for my tastes.

Overall, I would recommend this book to people who enjoy character driven plot lines and are passionate about the environment.