In Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash, the author creates a visually explicit story filled with detailed character development in a traumatic high school event.  The various stages of grief are followed as Alyse Aronson’s young life as a violinist is interrupted when her brother shoots and kills fifteen students at their high school resulting in Alyse’s guilt and internal struggles. The story follows Alyse’s life as she first hand discovers that the school shooter is her brother and the aftermath which follows her family who has been left behind to face the harsh realities of the school trauma. Throughout the book, the author has taken enormous care to develop all of the books characters and events in such heightened detail. However, these character descriptions can be excessively over developed and the reader could become lost within the narrative.  The intensively creative detailed language allows the reader to experience the range of emotions of a young high school student could feel in this situation, including the betrayal from her friends, parents, and a boyfriend.  The emotions are incredibly fierce and raw throughout the narrative.  Readers will appreciate the painstaking and haunting details which force them into such a terrible incident that is becoming too common in our high school communities.  All readers will travel this path with Alyse as she fights an internal struggle between loving her brother and wanting him back with their family to the unknown person who killed her friends and almost turned the gun on her.  Recommended for its point of view on a school shooting.