2.5 /5
If you want a beautiful heartfelt profound brilliant story written by Shaun David Hutchinson, about deciding whether or not to live, go read We Are The Ants. That book is one of my favourites and I cannot recommend it enough.
Weirdly, I'm not sure how the same person wrote The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley.

I didn't care about much.
Which is an awful thing to say about a book dealing with grief, love, family, and life. But it's true.
- The writing was meh.
- We're meant to sympathise with Drew but I couldn't seem to, maybe cause he explains his grieving and blame very late in the book, they don't come off as impactfull the rest of the time, and his morals remain questionable throughout.
- That "plot twist" existing only to try and shock us was cheap and easily predictable.
- BUT MOSTLY: I. Didn't. Get. Behind. Their Love Story.
We don't actually witness the first few interactions between Drew and Rusty. We know that they happen and that Drew now feels like he wants to protect the Kid, but WE can't care because we didn't follow those interactions. How am I meant to be on board of their growing love for each other if I don't see it develop??? Well... I just didn't.
- That's too bad seeing as their love for each other was basically their only reason to keep on living? Eeerm... okay? Not exactly the best moral to a story in my opinion...

Oops, did I spoil a little too much?
Oh well... you don't need to read it. Instead, read We Are The Ants. You'll be amazed by that one.