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This book was selected as a County Book of the Year � which meant that both our local university, and all libraries were involved in reading the book before hosting the author for a discussion event.

About this book�

This book felt like an intense journey. Considered a YA novel, I still felt as an adult, that I could be engaged in the story. (But...there was a glitch, and I will explain that later.)

Premise: Our main character, the narrator, asks us to call him Zits. He is a 15-year-old, half-Native American, half-Irish boy with an identity crisis and low self-esteem, struggling from the death of his mother and the absence of his father.

Zits is in the foster care system. Justice, an older kid, in the system, easily manipulates him. He tells him that if he kills people, his parents will come back. So, Zits decides to enter a bank with guns to do just that.

While in the act of the crime, his imagination begins a journey through history.

And as a reader, at this point I got confused. (My glitch!)

Was he in his imagination, or in history?

Was his mind time-traveling?

And while he was “time-traveling� he now was becoming all these different characters through time. His last character embodiment is his father.

And then...

I got it. I figured it out.

Zits realizes that all these characters that he has "imagined" or "time traveled into" have been involved in some form of violent act. And by being in their "presence" they have helped him understand that violence is unjust. This lesson sits well with him, because no one has ever taught him right from wrong.

Once I got over my confusion, and realized there was a lesson to all of this, I could appreciate the grief that Zits was experiencing and the poor decisions he was making that led him to that moment in the bank.

Now, having shared all this, I don't think I have spoiled the story - I think the story is in the "time travel" sequencing that occurs.

It will be important for readers to experience this for themselves to understand the lessons that Zits goes through to understand the conclusions I am coming to as a reader. For all I know, anybody can come to their own thoughts about what they believe happens with Zits - which is the beauty of any book!

Which is why...

This book creates...

Many great opportunities for thoughtful discussion.