Book Review | Mental health | Society

Bang by Barry Lyga

A concoction of emotional distress, love and acceptance

Have you ever thought about how one decision one moment in time can actually shape the rest of your life this is what Barry Lyga is exploring in his book, Bang.

Sebastian was four years old when an awful accident happened. He was playing with a gun, one of his father’s guns in his house and he accidentally shot and killed his baby sister.

Let that sink in that’s awful…an awful thing to have happened to you, an awful thing to deal with, the guilt and everything that goes into something like that. I can barely fathom and that is what Sebastian has been dealing with.

Now we look at Sebastian and he’s a teenager and all throughout his life people have asked him — you know questions like: do you remember doing this, like how does that make you feel?

How do you live on just those awful kind of things that you know someone would ask?

The sad thing is that he’s ridden with guilt about it and also his parents don’t like to talk about it. So, it’s just something that’s like inside of him that he has to contain the emotions of and that’s really hard.

Well, in comes a girl named Anissa. And Anissa is also, I guess looked at as a little bit different in her school. She’s a Muslim girl and she’s new. So, they really hit it off Sebastian and Anissa and they formed this friendship and it’s someone who’s been able to just accept him for who he is.

She doesn’t really know his entire story because she’s new and wasn’t there when this happened and so they have a really awesome relationship. So, it also explores healing, friendship, acceptance, and then there’s also a twist in this story that is pretty interesting, pretty intense and keeps you on your toes.

So I recommend it and hope you enjoy reading it.😊