Fight + Flight, by Jules Machias, follows Avery Hart, an impulsive, headstrong girl with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disorder that affects her joints, who loves drumming and dirt biking, and Sarah Bell, a girl who loves art and who has recently started having a lot of issues with anxiety and panic attacks following the death of her aunt and the subsequent move of her cousin/best friend. Avery is gay and has a crush on Sarah, but Sarah doesn’t know that yet, though she does yearn to grow closer to Avery. When their school has an active shooter drill, including simulated gunshots and screaming without any warning, the two both want to respond; however, while Sarah wants to help her classmates cope with it and to prevent it from ever happening again, Avery instead wants revenge.

I absolutely adored both of the characters. I connected more with Sarah, mostly because I have an anxiety disorder and thus related a lot to her struggles with that, but I also found myself loving Avery a lot more than I was expecting to. 

The two girls are excellent foils to each other. Avery has been struggling with her disorder a lot, especially after a dirt bike accident that dislocated her shoulder led to her getting surgery and then having to do a lot of physical therapy, all of which prevent her from being able to drum or be active. Although her home life is pretty good and her moms are very supportive, she still finds herself lashing out as a way to try and retain control while she is constantly in fear of losing it to her disorder. Her growing relationship with Sarah, one of the main aspects of the book, is obviously an important feature of her character, but her relationship with her best friend, Mason, is perhaps equally interesting.

Meanwhile Sarah, whose parents are relatively unsupportive and who is constantly having to care for her three younger siblings and deal with her older brother arguing with her parents all of the time, is struggling with anxiety, particularly around death and illness, since that’s what she lost her aunt to, but also just about growing close to people, for fear that they’ll leave again. She turns to art to cope with her panic attacks. Both girls fear losing control in some way, though they manage it very differently; a large portion of both of their character arcs involves each of them learning how to manage their fears in healthier and more constructive ways, which I think is a relaly important message.

The exploration of the two’s family dynamics was really interesting. Avery’s moms were great, and seeing them struggle with how to approach Avery with her recent behavioral issues was well-done. Sarah’s family is more complicated; her parents are very Catholic, which causes some problems with the fact that her older brother is gay, and she is often left taking care of her various younger siblings. Her parents don’t take her anxiety seriously, nor are they particularly concerned about her interests beyond what they want for her, so seeing her learn to stand up for herself is a very worthwhile part of her character arc.

One thing I will say about the plot is that the active shooter drill, which seemed like it would be a central plot-line, very much is not the focus of the book, to the point where I almost forgot about it a lot of the time. The trauma from it shapes the characters a lot, but, because it is primarily a character-driven story, the actual details of that plotline tended to be used to further character development rather than occurring concurrently with character development, which was done skillfully, but the result is that that part felt hard to follow and often unnecessary to the actual core of the story, which was Avery and Sarah’s fears of losing control and their resulting character development. While I think the shooting aspect is a valuable conversation to have, particularly with younger readers, it honestly felt like there were two separate stories within this book that didn’t meld together that well, and the plot as a whole is weaker for its inclusion.

I would definitely advise looking at some trigger warnings before reading this book; there’s obviously a lot of discussion of school shootings, but hospitalization, anxiety, and some amounts of depression, racism, homophobia, and transphobia also play roles. 

Overall, I’m giving this book four stars. I absolutely adored the characters, and their development was done wonderfully. I’m only taking off a star because the active shooter aspect felt so at odds with the rest of the book that much of the plot felt disjointed as a result. Otherwise, everything about the book was wonderful, and I’d absolutely recommend it to anybody who feels like they could handle it considering the trigger warnings.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a free eARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.