That said, the ending really did come across to me as the most PG-friendly one imaginable. In a short strike of a read it came across as too short, not completely convincing, and I did wonder if it was not chosen because any child of any age can stumble on this book, unaware of its specific target audience, and so care had to be taken to make it all bloodless. That said, it is more or less honest and true to the story, and not just a cop-out, and I'm only grateful the whole book is honest and true to the tenets of the lesson I mentioned earlier. If these pages stop one idiot from helping themselves to a weapon, or if they make just one reader happy to have finished a highly dramatic and emotive encounter with a horrid destiny, then they have served us very well.
The book is aimed at appropriate for the teen market, but the reading age is eight.