Thoughts & Prayers by Bryan Bliss: A Review

Hi Friends!

 I am back with another NetGalley E-ARC!

Thoughts & Prayers by Bryan Bliss is a three-part novel that comes out at the end of September. This story follows three characters, Eleanor, Brendan and Claire a year after they survived a shooting at their high school and hid under a stairwell together. 

I wanted this book to be so much more than it was. The topic was handled very well, as it is an emotional and delicate topic, but it felt like I was reading three different short stories, with no connection, and with nothing really happening. Each part seemed to deal with a different type of diagnosis in how they handled their grief. For example, we see PTSD in Claire, anger and resentment in Eleanor, and OCD in Brendan. 

The first part follows our character Claire, who moved to Minnesota with her brother, who is a pro-skater, after the shooting. We follow her as she is processing the trauma and meets a group of guys at the skate park who befriend her and one of them, who is slightly disturbed, is also going through his own trauma so they connect. Claire is constantly on edge, making sure she can always see her closest exit and tries to avoid riding the bus and crowds at all cost, as it reminds her of the shooting and gives her some PTSD flashbacks. We see her struggle with her friendship with Dark because he presents himself as.. well, dark and refers to her PTSD as "The Monster" while connecting it with her love for the novel Frankenstein. Her story was the least connected with the other two, especially since she moved away. She mentions Eleanor once and how they use to be close friends. 

The second part follows Eleanor, who is by far the best character of the three. She is a spitfire and a huge advocate for what she believes in, and doesn't let anyone tear her down. She is the "activist" out of the three and protested guns immediately after the shooting - causing a rise in her environment and lots of debating. She seems to have a lot of anger and resentment towards what happened, and to herself. Her story had the most action and had the best story line. I felt like of the three, hers truly flew by and I wish I had gotten more about her. She mentions Claire a few times but nothing about Brendan. 

The third part follows Brendan, who goes by his Wizards & Warriors (a rip off of Dungeons and Dragons) name of Brazzen. To him, his world is a fantasy game. He refers to his friends as their characters, and his therapist. He carries a dice with him that he is constantly rolling in all avenues of his life to help make him feel "safe" and make decisions. He seemed to have a lot of OCD that was related to his trauma. He was very focused on this dice and when he wasn't able to roll it, we would see a glimpse of him having a bit of a panic attack. His story was very odd to me, and confusing. It was however, the most connected to the other two characters as he mentions both Claire and Eleanor several times. 

I think I wanted more with this story and was expecting it to be different. It was interesting to see how the survivors were managing since the shooting but it felt like the three stories were so disconnected with one another that it felt more as if I was reading three short stories that did not relate. I felt like things were dragged out a little too and there was not much going on in any of the chapters, aside from Eleanor's. Overall the story felt very meh to me, which was disappointing because it is an important topic that should be discussed and explored.