Shooter -- Reviews
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WINNER of the 2017 Red Maple Award
WINNER of the 2017 John Spray Mystery Award
2018 Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award -- Honour Book
2016 Best Books for Kids & Teens -- starred choice
2017 Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Crime Writing -- Finalist
2017 Amy Mathers Teen Book Award -- Finalist
4/4 stars -- Highly Recommended
Pignat ramps up the tension and delves deeply into the minds of teenagers to create an exciting and profound drama...
Pignat's life as a high school teacher and her research into special needs education in the modern inclusive high school demonstrate a deep understanding of the behaviours and challenges of an autistic young man. From the pictograms that shape his daily routines to the close relationship with his educational assistant, to the ritualistic verbal and physical quest for recognizable patterns, Noah is a fully realized character....
The countdown to disaster builds momentum effectively, and the quick back-to-back entries in the last few minutes create an action-packed conclusion.
Driven by guilt, family pressure, personality disorders, and the vagaries of powerful emotion, kids juggle complicated demands. Shooter explores the intensity and the personal costs of those demands on very realistic characters...
In her novels, Caroline Pignat has explored a wide range of experiences of young people, from the slave fields of the southern United States to the sinking of the Empress of Ireland to Irish migration to North America. In Shooter, she sets her story in the here and now for Canadian teenagers, but once again she strikes a chord of deep concern for young people...
Pignat has created a pitch perfect combination of multiple modes, well-tuned voices and a irresistible and satisfying story.
-- Canadian Review of Materials excerpt [note: FYI the full review summarizes a lot of the plot]
WINNER of the 2017 John Spray Mystery Award
2018 Manitoba Young Readers Choice Award -- Honour Book
2016 Best Books for Kids & Teens -- starred choice
2017 Arthur Ellis Award for Excellence in Crime Writing -- Finalist
2017 Amy Mathers Teen Book Award -- Finalist
4/4 stars -- Highly Recommended
Pignat ramps up the tension and delves deeply into the minds of teenagers to create an exciting and profound drama...
Pignat's life as a high school teacher and her research into special needs education in the modern inclusive high school demonstrate a deep understanding of the behaviours and challenges of an autistic young man. From the pictograms that shape his daily routines to the close relationship with his educational assistant, to the ritualistic verbal and physical quest for recognizable patterns, Noah is a fully realized character....
The countdown to disaster builds momentum effectively, and the quick back-to-back entries in the last few minutes create an action-packed conclusion.
Driven by guilt, family pressure, personality disorders, and the vagaries of powerful emotion, kids juggle complicated demands. Shooter explores the intensity and the personal costs of those demands on very realistic characters...
In her novels, Caroline Pignat has explored a wide range of experiences of young people, from the slave fields of the southern United States to the sinking of the Empress of Ireland to Irish migration to North America. In Shooter, she sets her story in the here and now for Canadian teenagers, but once again she strikes a chord of deep concern for young people...
Pignat has created a pitch perfect combination of multiple modes, well-tuned voices and a irresistible and satisfying story.
-- Canadian Review of Materials excerpt [note: FYI the full review summarizes a lot of the plot]
...the author masterfully maintains each voice, giving readers an intimate view of how the characters feel about themselves, each other and the unfolding events. Moments shift seamlessly between the funny... the human... and the heartbreaking.
Pignat deftly peels away the layers of the superficial personas, enabling the teens to appreciate and respect one another.
Shooter delves into the teen psyche to reveal shared truths.
Quill & Quire -- May 2016
Pignat continues to defy narrative boundaries in Shooter, alternating between journal entries, text messages, poems, pictographs, and newspaper articles. Her characters are impeccably voiced, and readers will move seamlessly from judgment to empathy, laughing out loud, only to turn the page and shed a tear. Shooter unflinchingly explores the many experiences of high school, the nuances and shortcomings of modern communication, and the loneliness that brews when communication fails. With gut-wrenching locked-room suspense, Shooter is a frightening, yet hopeful snippet of high school life in the 21st century.
Karen Doerksen -- National Reading Campaign excerpt
Pignat, a real-life teacher at All Saints Catholic High School, definitely knows how teenagers think, speak and feel. There is a ring of truth to the characters, their backstories and their reactions to horrific events.
The plot is cunningly unpredictable... as the story moves to a nail-biter of an ending.
Reading Shooter, it is easy to see why Pignat has already won two Governor General’s Awards for children’s books, Greener Grass and The Gospel Truth.
The Ottawa Citizen
How these seeemingly incongruent characters come together, and together they do come, in a complex plot of action, angst, and deliverance makes Shooter the extraordinary story that it is.
...Caroline Pignat’s brilliant writing immerses the reader in the terror of a school in genuine lockdown and the anxiety of relating to those whose differences make you uncomfortable. Beyond the drama, and there is much, Shooter is a story of empowerment, taken and accepted and relinquished, and a formidable tale told by one of Canada’s greatest writers.
...Caroline Pignat’s brilliant writing immerses the reader in the terror of a school in genuine lockdown and the anxiety of relating to those whose differences make you uncomfortable. Beyond the drama, and there is much, Shooter is a story of empowerment, taken and accepted and relinquished, and a formidable tale told by one of Canada’s greatest writers.