Title: Ten After Closing
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Author: Jessica Bayliss
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Publication: September 4th 2018
Ten After Closing by Jessica Bayliss is a fantastic young adult book about a hostage situation and all the different demons each person could possibly be fighting each day. This book was such an interesting story. Not only do we get the hostage/shooting situation but we also get to see each character go through their own problems and some of their backstory. You get to watch Winny and Scott grow in the span of a few hours just because of an extremely tragic event.
Scott shouldn't have even been working at Cafe Flores that night. He was supposed to be going to a party with his girlfriend and finding a place to stay after because his dad was on one of his tirades. Instead of all that, Scott takes a shift from someone and ends up working that night. Winny should have been there either. Her friend dropped her off at Cafe Flores in a makeshift attempt at matchmaking Winny with Scott. But they are all there when three gunmen come into the cafe and turn their lives upside down.
It was just supposed to be a simple robbery-type situation but because of people still being in the cafe and certain events that had taken place earlier in the day, things aren't going as planned for the gunmen. Then.... someone gets shot and their plans are entirely ruined and they have to figure out what to do to get money within a short period of time before something even worse happens.
There were a few parts of the book that made me angry(aside from the whole hostages with guns situation) and most of them had to do with Sylvia, the owner of the cafe. I can understand loving and wanting to protect your family but when your family isn't giving you that same courtesy then what's the point? I know she felt guilty about some stuff she did in the past but she let her brother get away with way too much stuff and she angered me so greatly.
I think watching the character development in a short period of time was the part I really enjoyed the most about this book. By the end, I was so proud of how two of the characters had grown and decided to take control of their lives.
In the end, this book taught me a few things. One, you never know what you will do or be capable of in the face of actual danger. Two, life is too damn short to waste is trying to please everyone around you. And three, trying to wedge a giant canvas painting into the trunk of your car may result in the trunk lining being torn.
