Are You Still There - Sarah Lynn Scheerger

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 is part of his plan. Can Gabi reach out and stop him? Or will she be too late?

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Gabi Mallory is in the girls' bathroom of her high school the moment a bomb threat is called in. Police quickly arrive to assess the situation, DO find a bomb but no clues as to who the bomber might be. Since all the students are visibly emotionally shaken, school is let out early. Gabi returns home to talk to her parents, only to find her cop-father has already been assigned to the case (to determine who the mysterious bomber is).

 

As the weeks progress, Gabi returns to school, attempting to return to a normal routine all around actually. In the wake of the attempted bombing, the school decides to set up a crisis hotline where students can anonymously call in and discuss anything troubling them. Gabi is chosen as one of a crew of students brought together to man the phone lines. 

 

Small clues as to the bomber's identity start to surface here and there. First we learn that the mystery person wishes to go by the moniker Stranger, since how they identify themselves in the world, a quiet, ignored figure who's been made to feel like a nobody by their peers. Then the playing cards start popping up, cryptic messages written around the card edges. The majority of them being find their way into Gabi's locker, much to her unease! Why is she being targeted? Is the bomber someone she knows .... a friend feeling neglected? a boy she might have too harshly rejected? Or was she just chosen at random? Some clues even have her throwing suspicious glances at her new boyfriend... how much does she know about him really?

 

Angry (but still anonymous) calls full of venom and threats start flooding the hotline call center. Even when the kids close up shop each night and head home, right at 9 pm shift end, texts come on their personal phones, only ever saying "Are you still there?" Some of the messages written on the playing cards hint at the possibility that the bomber might have some connection to the recent suicide of a student from the high school. Readers of this novel are given extra glimpses at who the bomber might be via the brief one page "Stranger's Manifesto" entries, written in a sort of verse style, that precede each chapter. 

 

Admittedly, I went into this one with somewhat high expectations. Having been a high school student the year the Columbine shooting happened and having my own high school subsequently go on a kind of security lockdown, I remember well the fear that comes with being in this type of situation. It's a fear that I didn't feel was all that well conveyed in this novel. There is SOME suspense as the reader tries to piece together the identity of the bomber, trying to figure out Gabi's connection to it all. I sometimes felt nervous for her in scenes where I thought she might be possibly victimized, but truthfully for the subject matter I felt this book was played way too safe. 

 

For me, I think the trouble was the sense that not enough focus was being put on the bomber / the investigation. I felt like I spent sooo much time having to read about Gabi's budding dating life and social time with her friends. I was left thinking, "she really doesn't seem all that troubled for someone that could possibly be a target for some mentally unhinged bomber!" When I got to the end and the identity of the bomber was revealed, I was further annoyed because of the character Scheerger decided to pin the crime to. It just felt like a waste of my reading time (trying to dance around possible spoilers here, btw). 

 

What bothered me more than that though was just the character of Gabi. Not just her casualness in the situation, but I noticed in her dialogue she kept making these slightly judgemental, sometimes almost racist remarks about other kids in her school: images of Native American warriors instantly made her think of "war, violence, savagery"; the Hispanic kid who "was obviously an ESL student", the girl who half-buzzed / half dyed her hair "pretty sure she's a druggie" or the "fringe" students as she called them, the kids outside the popular crowds who "couldn't be honor kids" WTF? Most "fringe" kids I knew (me being one of them, even) WERE the honor roll kids usually tutoring the popular kids... what do you think put us on that fringe in the first place? :-P Even her thoughts on Buddha: "Buddha in his diaper and cute fat rolls." WOW.

 

 

By Chapter 23, Gabi's commentary turns a shade hypocritical. When a friend of Gabi's says something along the same lines as Gabi's thoughts above, and ends with "Gabi, you're hanging out with losers" Gabi comes back with, "What do you think gives you the right to pass judgement on all kinds of random people? Just 'cause they're not like you? That somehow makes them less worthy as human beings? What kind of holier-than-thou stuff is that? You're mean. And I'm mean for listening to you all these years and not telling you what I really think." 

 

You know, Gabi, a pot is still a pot no matter how many shelves higher they're placed above that kettle. ;-)

 

So yeah, after cringing so hard at / being so distracted by Gabi's run-away mouth, I pretty much forgot to be concerned about the whole other bomber storyline! 

 

Though I might not have been blown away with the story itself, I applaud Scheerger regardless for getting the topic out there regarding teenage depression and the dangers that can follow. I also appreciate that she includes a resource page at the back of the book which I will repost here for anyone that can maybe use this information. 

 

 

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From Scheerger's author blurb at the back of the book: "Are You Still There was inspired by her time volunteering for a helpline in college, an experience that led to her career as a clinical social worker. Today, Sarah runs counseling groups for at-risk teens on middle and high school campuses."