**Trigger Warning: Suicide**

I'm... shocked. While I was reading I had no idea it was a YA novel. I'm still so overcome by the intensity of the emotions I endured following along with this short audiobook, I'm not sure where to start! Not only was the writing so manipulatively perfect and readable, that Leonard... how I wanted to hug him and wish him a happy birthday.

It's Leonard Peacock's 18th birthday and as he makes himself breakfast alone in his house he considers how today will end- with him shooting & killing a boy he knows, and then killing himself. He jokes about how modern the placement of his grandfather's gun looks when he snaps a picture of it next to his bowl. He has a plan to hand out gifts to a handful of people who have affected his life (his neighbor, an Iranian student, a young religious woman, his Holocaust teacher) and not one realizes it's his birthday or gets overly concerned with his odd behavior. As he gets through the day it slowly becomes obvious how his snarky attitude and sick humor are just a facade for the pain he hides away. Such a brutal story.