Every Stolen Breath by Kimberly Gabriel Published by Blink on November 5, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Contemporary
Pages: 336
Source: The Publisher
Cover Artist: DeAnna Pierce
My content rating: YA (Nothing more than kissing; Violence, including death)
My rating:
The Swarm is unrecognizable, untraceable, and unpredictable—random attacks on the streets of Chicago by a mob of crazed teens that leaves death in its wake. It’s been two years since the last attack, but Lia Finch has found clues that reveal the Swarm is ready to claim a new victim.
Lia is the only one still pursuing her father’s killers, two years after attorney Steven Finch’s murder by the Swarm. Devastated and desperate for answers, Lia will do anything to uncover the reasons behind his death and to stop someone else from being struck down. But due to debilitating asthma and PTSD that leaves her with a tenuous hold on reality, Lia is the last person to mount a crusade on her own.
After a close encounter with the Swarm puts Lia on their radar, she teams up with a teen hacker, a reporter, and a mysterious stranger who knows firsthand how the mob works. Together, they work to uncover the master puppeteer behind the group. Though if Lia and her network don’t stop the person pulling the strings—and fast—Lia may end up the next target.
This heart-thumping thriller will keep you guessing! Who is behind Lia’s father’s death—and will she be the next victim?
I hadn’t heard of the flash mob violence in Chicago, even though I live in the suburbs (now that I’ve looked it up, I know it’s scary stuff!), but I was incredibly intrigued at the idea of a book based on the concept. The idea of teenagers organizing violent mobs via social media is pretty scary. And then Gabriel took the concept and made it even scarier: What if the attacks were targeted, a cover-up for some larger scheme, and the victims were actually dying? The result is a YA thriller with incredibly high stakes. Lia hasn’t given up on finding the “Swarm” who killed her father, but when she tries to capture another attack on video, she finds herself in the middle of a dangerous game—one she doesn’t know the rules for. The suspense is constant as Lia sees danger in every teenager she encounters. Is she imagining things or could almost any kid at school actually be out to get her?
The book also weaves in a romance, but I don’t want to talk much about it because I feel like it would be hard to stay out of spoiler territory. Suffice it to say, Lia’s never quite sure who she can trust—and that includes her love interest. I’ll confess that I did feel a slight disconnect with the MC—a few events in this book had the potential to be devastating, but while I appreciated them for their effect on the story and the mystery, I never really felt for Lia as she experienced incredible loss. Still, this was a tightly woven mystery with plenty of surprises!
***Disclosure: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. No other compensation was given and all opinions are my own.***
About the Author
Kimberly Gabriel started writing in fourth grade when she wrote, bound, and gave away books of terrible poetry to family and teachers as holiday gifts. Today she is an English teacher, who still squanders all free minutes to write and uses it as the best scapegoat for her laundry avoidance issues. When she is not teaching or writing, Kimberly is enjoying life with her husband, her three beautiful children, and a seriously beautiful boxer in the northern suburbs of Chicago. Every Stolen Breath is her debut novel and a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection.
Finished copy of Every Stolen Breath by Kimberly Gabriel + signed bookplate + poster (USA)
Follow the Tour
Ooh, this is a neat concept! But I particularly love that bit in the author bio about using writing as a laundry avoidance technique. SO TRUE. (Unless I have writer’s block. Then laundry becomes a writing avoidance technique.)
Yes, for me, I more often use laundry as a writing procrastination tool than the other way around, I’ll admit. LOL!
Glad to see it was good for you. I had a different idea of what kind of story it was going to be, because I read the synopsis a little wrong, or maybe in a hurry, so didn’t really get into it. But I do agree it had the suspense and lots of mystery to it in what little bit I read. Great review!
That’s the worst when that happens—it can be so hard to get on board with a book when you go in expecting one thing and get something very different.
I’ve seen flash mob violence on the news a few times and it is scary.
I hadn’t really heard about flashmob violence before this—it’s terrifying!
I remember seeing a flash mob take over a drug store in Philly this past summer. It was horrific to watch the tapes. I don’t think I have ever seen them addressed in any books. Interesting.
Oh, wow! That would be crazy!!
I’ll have to put this to consideration. I think I haven’t read any YA thriller in a while. Will probably have to fix that with this 🙂
It had definitely been a while since I’d read a YA thriller as well.
the cover made me curious and after reading your review i feel this is one i would find interesting
Yes, you’re a mystery reader, right? I think you’d enjoy it!
It sounds like this one shows you a bit of the scary side when it comes to social media and how it can be abused. It definitely does sound like a thrilling read! Glad you could enjoy it. 🙂
Yes, it’s especially scary to realize that teenagers really did use social media to plan out these sort of mobs (though no one was killed in real life, there were some serious injuries).