Juska constructs If We Had Known with intelligence, sensitivity...digging deep into her characterizations and settings. She depicts an uncomfortable mother/daughter dynamic, two intelligent women coming undone in very particular ways but eventually finding the courage to face their fears together and on their own ... Juska offers few clues about the motivations of [shooter] Nathan Dugan, which is exactly the correct choice given how few real-life incidents like this offer clear-cut answers. Juska also critiques the lure of social media, clearly and smartly depicting its potential for unthinking destructiveness.
The shots have already been fired at the outset of Elise Juska’s quietly clever novel ... Juska...neatly lays the groundwork for a character who would be liable to miss flagrant warning signs ... In keeping with a novel about a writing instructor, Juska’s prose is clean and straightforward. She strikes a cozy tone that is the literary opposite of toxic masculinity ... The pace can drag, and no novel needs so many descriptions of the color and cast of the sky. But in our age of political rancor and tweet storms befitting our state of emergency, there is something radical about a take on the gun problem that concerns itself more with raising questions than ire.
Through the all-too-familiar terrain of this modern-day tragedy, Juska...explores the growing issue of anxiety among today’s youth, asking readers to consider the ways in which our actions have increasingly far-reaching impact. Switching between viewpoints, Juska contrasts the actions of a split second and the slow burn of a lifetime of behavior to show that both can have extensive, damning consequences that are rarely foreseen.
Juska...explores the characters’ ensuing efforts to assign blame and their damaging impact on the lives of Maggie; her anxiety-prone daughter, Anna; Nathan’s mother; and others. The novel also expertly depicts the way in which, in the wake of a public tragedy, the echo chamber effect of the internet (including a harmful YouTube video) and social media easily convert speculation and supposition into damning 'fact.' Although some of the peripheral characters only exist to serve the plot, Juska’s novel is moving and memorable in its portrayal of people unexpectedly involved in devastating events.
Maggie is not an easy character: plain, old-fashioned, and essentially friendless ... Her only child, Anna, a second protagonist, suffers from extreme anxiety and anorexia ... Unfortunately, both of these troubled characters start to lose their holds on the reader’s sympathy (mother) and interest (daughter) ... Well-written, realistic, and suspenseful to the point of dread.
