This book is good, but different! I read it quite quickly. It's the story of Polly age 11 and her father Nate. They are on the run from a violent gang who have just killed Polly's mother and step-father. The gang also have a notice out to kill Polly and her father. Our story tells of the two coping on the run and how Polly becomes fearless in protecting her father. An interesting read.

3★ aka "She Rides Shotgun"

“Magic needed payback. Magic found the suckmouth’s old biker gang. Magic took thumbs as trophies. Can’t ride a chopper with no thumbs. Magic left a bunch of half-handed bastards pawning their bikes.”

Violence. Lots. And lessons.

“The hardest thing about a fight is learning to get hit.’

‘“You mean how not to get hit?’

‘You’re going to get hit,’ he said. ‘Life ain’t a video game or a school test. There’s no doing it perfect. . .

‘When the bullies came after you, when they hurt you, it wasn’t the hurt that you were scared of. It was what you wanted to do, what you could do, that’s what scared you.’

Nate’s out of prison and has to rescue his 11-year-old daughter, Polly, before the hitmen from Aryan Steele wipe her out. His older brother was the muscle of the family and he tries to teach his shy, introverted little girl how to protect herself the way Nick taught him.

She talks only to her teddy bear and otherwise pretends she’s living underwater to escape the world. Who could blame her?

Eventually, after plenty of violent encounters and a rather bloody version of Fagin teaching the kids how to steal in Oliver Twist Polly toughens up and thrives on it, regular bruised chip off the scarred old block. How to strangle, how to choke, and so on (ad nauseum).

They meet a woman called Charlotte:

Polly liked the way Charlotte looked at her, like Polly was a monster wearing little girl skin.

She was. Polly loves how tough she’s become. Nate hopes it will be enough to save her from the gang. I became increasingly disinterested. Blood and gore in a simple story of how you never escape your prison ‘obligations’ or enemies.

Thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster UK for the review copy from which I’ve quoted. I’m certainly not the target audience so should probably have given it a miss.

A Lesson In Violence by Jordan Harper is definitely a graphic crime novel that will keep you reading!
Polly is an eleven year old loner with only a teddy bear as a friend. Polly is brilliant beyond her years.
Nate, her father gets released from prison and learns his family is the target of Aryan Steel a gang of hardened criminals who rank up by killing.
I became attached to Polly and wanted her to be okay. Yet I was stunned by what she and Nate go through and have to do to remain safe or alive.
I enjoyed all the action this book offers and it will be one I remember!

As soon as I read the synopsis, I knew this was going to be an unforgettable ride. It seems like complex father-daughter relationships are a popular theme in recent books and I couldn't be happier. She Rides Shotfun (aka A Lesson in Violence) was one of my favorite reads of the summer.

I don't usually enjoy action-packed stories in books as much as in movies, but She Rides Shotgun was the exception to the rule. I was completely addicted from the moment I started it. This book tells the story of a man, Nate, who has just been released from prison but is wanted by some dangerous men. The Aryan Steel gang wants him and his family dead and Nate can't allow them harm his daughter Polly. So he picks her up from school and makes her travel with thim.

Road trip stories are usually wonderful and this one is just the perfect adventure. Their bond grows strong, Polly learns how to be brave and fierce and Nate discovers that he might have a weakness, after all. The novel is dark and gritty, but with a lovely side at the same time.

The detective's perspective was interesting as well and I couldn't wait to find out how he would behave when catching up with the fugitives. Help them or hurt them? And how is this journey going to end? It surely can't go on forever...

Haven't read Jordan Harper's short story collection, but I'll surely pick up his next book. She Rides Shotgun is an unforgetable tale of family and redemption.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview A Lesson in Violence by Jordan Harper.
The word comes down in Pelican Bay - a family is marked to die. A serious prison gang, Aryan Steel, is out for vengience for a prison killing. Nate, a hardcore criminal, has killed a made man and he knows he is not safe, but the word is out to take out his familiy as well.
Nate gets out of prison and knows he has to get to his family before the Aryan Steel does - before they kill what is left of his life.
I really liked this book and for a debut, I must say this is one of the best I have read. This is well written and really vivid and scary at times.
4 STARS - RECOMMEND!!!!!!

I really wanted to like this book but it just did not sit right with me. It started out well but got a bit tedious by the end. A father and daughter road trip with a bit too much brutality from one so young. It was well written but I just could not like the characters of Nate and Polly. The book failed to deliver the early promise and left me a bit disappointed. Thank you Net Galley for my copy. I reviewed on Goodreads.

Sometimes when you finish reading a book you just aren't ready to let the characters go and that's very much how I feel about Poppy and, to a lesser extent, Nate. I want to know that she will be ok and have a good life beyond the book (and yes I do know she isn't real). It's so easy to picture her with her watermelon red hair and bear sticking out of her backpack. I must thank bear for adding a touch of humour to the story. There is a lot of violence in this book, as the title suggests, but at the core it is a story of a father/daughter relationship and how it develops in the toughest of circumstances.

A LESSON IN VIOLENCE (also in print and better known by the title She Rides Shotgun) by Jordan Harper is a story about a young girl named Polly, who is a loner and outcast at her school, with her teddy bear seemingly her only friend.

Nate is Polly’s dad, and he’s been incarcerated for most of Polly’s life, but inexplicably shows up at her school one day out of the blue, and it soon becomes clear that something has gone terribly wrong in regards to the safety of anyone associated with Nate as he whisks her off with no explanation.

Soon it becomes clear that Nate has become a marked man as a result of an incident in prison just before his release, and protecting Polly is his one goal left in life even though they haven’t had a relationship since early in her childhood.

Jordan Harper has written not a good, but a great debut full length novel that follows up on his Love and Other Wounds: Stories as well as his other short stories, of which his ‘LUCY IN THE PIT’ from THUGLIT Issue 1 got my attention right away, and I’ve followed him ever since.

Recommended obviously to all fans of the Thuglit books and authors, especially Johnny Shaw readers, although Harper's writing is a style all his own and I’ll be looking forward to whatever comes next from him.

5 stars.