Written in the form of interviews, reports, and journal entries, the story of three troubled teenagers ends in a tragic school shooting

Dill has had to wrestle with vipers his whole life at home, as the only son of a Pentecostal minister who urges him to handle poisonous rattlesnakes, and at school, where he faces down bullies who target him for his father's extreme faith and very public fall from grace. The only antidote to all this venom is his friendship with fellow outcasts Travis and Lydia. But as they are starting their senior year, Dill feels the coils of his future tightening...

When Chester tells his mother about the school bully, she asks him to gather his friends to hear a story about getting along with people who are prickly