Bystanders

A Novel

“There are only three types of kids: bullies, the bullied, and bystanders. Which one are you?”It was a day like any other at Mesa Rosa High School — except for one sophomore boy who decided to carry out unprecedented revenge on fellow students. No one would be spared. Certainly not those who mercilessly bullied him over the years, and not even those who stood by and did nothing. Bystanders. Brett had declared them all “guilty” on this day.The preparations took months. He emptied his college fund to purchase exactly what he needed. He had the school schedule memorized down to the minute. He even studied other school massacres to determine what went wrong so he could avoid mistakes.But he didn’t account for intersections: The determined detective who just couldn’t just put aside a seemingly humdrum police report; the female teacher/ex-soldier who met an unexpected comrade-in-arms while the attack came inches closer to her room; the black sophomore boy from the other side of the tracks and white sophomore girl from privilege who’ve never spoken to each other until this day finds them hiding in the same maintenance closet where they work out their plan of escape — and their differences.Bystanders is a suspenseful thrill-ride wound around compelling snapshots of characters so real and flawed and deep and heroic that the unfolding day they step into — one that none of them will ever forget — reads like it was culled from real-life newspaper accounts.

Good storyline but the AI narrator ruined it

the story was good but the AI narrator was terrible- very choppy, read words strangely, lots of weird breaks, and emotions didn’t match what was being said.

Good story, kinda hard to follow

The narration is awful..it made the story hard to follow and I almost did not finish it. Overall story was good. A lot of jumping from character to character. The parts that are text messages back and forth are so bad..had to listen at 2.3 speed because it is soooooo sloooowww.

The descriptions, I could visualize everything that was being read.

The story I could visualize I cried I was shocked so many different emotions and although it was a virtual voice, I felt the emotion amazing story sad story but amazing