From November 4th through November 18th, the e-book and audio book platform OverDrive, which supports digital formats in most library systems, sponsored what they called the Big Library Read. For this reading initiative, OverDrive selected a book and provided unlimited copies to all library customers to download for free, with no wait-list.

One thing I believe OverDrive is hoping to do with these kinds of initiatives is to get library users accustomed to the idea that if they check out a digital book, it returns itself to the library at the end of the lending period, so there are no late fees. Another incentive I have personally found appealing since I no longer work full-time and find myself increasingly reluctant to leave the house is that if you finish the book you are reading at bed-time and haven’t got another book lined up ready to go, you can hop on your library’s website at 2:00 in the morning, if need be, find an e-book you want to read, and 60 seconds later (unless it’s wait-listed) it’s on your Kindle or other device, ready to go. Even Amazon Prime can’t beat that.

The book OverDrive selected for November’s Big Library Read was I’m Not Dying with You Tonight, by Kimberly Jones and Gilly Segal. The book looked intriguing to me, with its theme of race relations—I am always looking for new books with teen appeal to include in my Young Adult Literature class as examples of inclusivity and the outing of privilege. I liked the idea that the book was written from two separate perspectives, one black girl and one white, by two authors with diverse experiences dictated partially by race.

The book begins with newcomer Campbell reluctantly agreeing, under pressure from a teacher, to work the concessions stand at the Friday night football game. The teacher presents it idealistically as a chance to get to know others at the high school to which Cameron has just transferred—both the kids with whom she will work the stand, and the ones who come to buy—but Campbell has her doubts. She was sent to this school when her mom moved overseas for a job, leaving her to live with her dad, and it’s a different experience for her—the school is in a predominantly black neighborhood, whereas her last school had only a handful of black students. Since Campbell hardly knows anyone, the teacher assures her father—who is leaving that night to go out of town for the weekend—that she will drop Campbell at home after they wrap things up at the stand.

Unfortunately, things at this concession stand are neither planned out nor conducted in the same efficient way to which Campbell was accustomed at her old school, where she worked with a bunch of her friends. She is stuck with a couple of people who are patently not interested in being there (or helping), and the burden of the labor falls on her. As the line lengthens at the window and the increasingly desperate Campbell falls further behind, the people waiting begin to verbally abuse her.

Enter Lena. Campbell has seen Lena around school, but they know each other only well enough to say hi. Lena’s initial reaction to the milling crowd around the concessions stand is to tell Campbell to get her butt in gear, but she soon realizes that what’s going on isn’t Campbell’s fault. Then an altercation breaks out between a couple of people standing in line, and what begins as a minor food fight abruptly escalates. Lena jumps inside the stand with Campbell, and they decide to just ride things out in there…until shots are fired. Lena’s cell phone is dead, and Campbell’s is in her backpack in a classroom far from where they are, so they can’t call for help. This is the set-up for a night of escalating violence and chaos in which Lena and Campbell have to rely on and trust one another to get themselves out of this mess, which has turned into a town-wide race riot.

I liked this book, but…it felt like something was lacking. It will be a winner for sure with teen book clubs (and maybe some adult ones too), because there are so many things to discuss—the precon-ceptions, the white and black perspectives, the differing attitudes, the connectedness (or lack of) to the community, the whole boyfriend thing (to what lengths will I go to keep my man), etc. But I almost felt like it was written specifically with this purpose in mind—to provide lots of fodder for a discussion group—and not simply as a novel.

There’s no real story arc; it’s more of a slice of life-type thing, with documentation of two girls’ experiences of the same events over the course of one night. It’s intense and fast-paced, and keeps you reading, and it’s not bad…but I think I would have appreciated it a lot more had there been more development, more interplay between the girls, maybe even some continuity beyond this one night. There wasn’t enough “there” there. People have been citing this as the natural follow-up book to The Hate U Give, but while it focuses on some of the same issues, has great characterizations, and raises lots of questions, it’s not a STORY the way that book was, and that’s disappointing. While I wouldn’t turn you away from it, if you want a more comprehensive treatment of these issues I’d say to read The Hate U Give, On the Come Up, How It Went Down, or Lies We Tell Ourselves instead.