A review by whimsicallymeghan
The Gatekeepers by Jen Lancaster

4.0

The town of North Shore is best known for its prestige of sending teens to ivy league colleges. Everyone there strives for greatness or has it thrusted upon them. All the parents in this town care more about how their kids look on paper, then what they’re actually interested in, and it’s starting to wear these kids down. It’s gotten to the point that there are multiple suicides a year. When another happens, the students of North Shore High School have had enough and they decide to band together to start helping one another, instead of competing against each other. This was a really tough read. There were chapters that were just so heavy, that breaks needed to be taken in order to get through it all. This reader almost didn’t know if they would make it through the whole book, but they had a feeling in the back of their mind that once it got as dark as it did, that there would be some light. This dealt with really intense, yet very important topics, in which the reader really appreciated. It was so good to see these characters not give up on each other, when that would have been the easy solution. The things that these characters went through felt really real, from the stress of trying to fit in, trying to get into your top school, trying to meet all these crazy demands by having an exorbitant amount of schoolwork and extracurricular activities, to falling in love for the first time, to falling out of love for the first time – it all felt genuine and relevant. Some of the characters felt a little more irritating to read, especially the parent figures in this, why were none of them supportive to their kids?!, but watching as they each grew from the circumstances and became better selves was rewarding to read. The plot itself was good in the sense that it spoke volumes in the way society puts pressure on teenagers to have their lives all figured out by the time they’re ready go to college, as if not going to college or waiting to go is the end of the world. This showed the ugly realities of what can come from too much pressure, but what can also come from trying to save each other, too. This was fast-paced in some parts, slower in others, but it worked well for the type of story. The writing was good, this author liked to use the same phrases over and over, which got old quick. As well, the reader didn’t think it was believable that all the characters said the same things. In the end though, this was a powerful book with a strong message, just be sure to check trigger warnings before diving in.