All We Have Left

All We Have Left, by Wendy Mills, is a story about two girls: Jesse, and Alia. However, it tells their stories 15 years apart, and their stories are connected by one person; Travis. Travis died in the 9/11 attack, but before he died he tried helping Alia, a muslim teenager, to escape. Alia was in the building to see her father. She dreamt of going to college and becoming an artist but her parents didn't support her. She got caught caught holding a joint, so they grounded her. She tried persuading her mother that it wasn't hers but she wouldn't listen. She went to talk to her father in hopes he'd listen to her.  We don't know yet if Alia ends up making it out alive or not, although we know Travis did not make it. Travis is Jesse's older brother.  Jesse struggles with her brothers death, and ever since, her home has been filled with grief and anger because of her father. I feel like her father doesn't really know how to handle the situation.  Jesse gets involved with the wrong crowd and she ends up getting in trouble for graffitiing "terrorists go home" on an islamic peace center. I was surprised when she did this. It appears Jesse is looking for someone to blame.  She has so much anger built inside her she doesn't really know what to do. So far I've found this story really interesting. There's not many novels out there where you get to see two different stories in one book. I think it's really creative how the two stories are connected as well.