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Painful amounts of onstage child abuse

Five eighth-grade boys discover an abandoned bomb shelter built sometime in the 1970s by a deceased billionaire, and they are determined to keep it secret from everyone, as their private clubhouse, which they call their "fort."

Evan's parents are drug addicts who are in jail because of criminal acts. He and his 16-year-old brother have been living with their grandparents for several years. Evan's brother has been hanging out with a 16-year-old, high-school dropout, who is a thief with violent tendencies. Throughout this novel Evan's brother and the intimidating friend keep trying to force Evan to steal for them. They state that, if caught, they would be tried as an adult at 16, but at 13, he would "only" go to juvie. Eventually they start persecuting the other boys as well.

Mitchell has OCD. His mom has to work three jobs and they are barely getting by.

Ricky is only befriended by Evan because his grandmother insisted upon it. Ricky is brilliant and skipped a year of school, so he is only 12. He previously went to a magnet school during his elementary years, but he is currently attending regular public school until he can qualify for a high-school-level magnet school. He is actually the one who found the bomb shelter, but for most of the book, Evan and his friends, who are more than happy to take over the bomb shelter as their fort, treat him disrespectfully.

CJ has an abusive stepfather. He hits CJ and his mother. There are multiple scenes of this physical abuse in this novel.

Jason's distinguishing characteristic is that he has a really loud voice. He has a girlfriend named Janelle whom he can't stand to keep secrets from, and he feels guilty not telling her about the fort. She is the daughter of the local sheriff.

There are some very strong trigger issues in this novel for any adult who might read this novel, screening it for their child or reading it to their child. And even if you don't have a specific trigger issue about child abuse, it is extremely painful reading about children being abused and having no responsible adult they feel they can count on throughout the majority of this novel. I realize it is standard practice in children's books and YA novels to "orphan" the main character, whether literally or figuratively, so that the story will not suffer from the deus ex machina of parents or school administrators stepping in to save them from their problems. However, I found it unbearable reading about abuse like this, even for the sake of fulfilling a standard trope of popular fiction.

I obtained the audiobook version of this novel through Hoopla. As is the case with many of this author's novels, this story is told from the POV of multiple characters, and the audiobook is narrated by multiple different voice talents. Some of the adult-male narrators, performing 13-year-old boys, whose voices would not have changed yet, have baritone voices that do not sound authentic for the characters.