Like many teenage boys, Alex Colling views abortion as something he doesn’t need to have an opinion about—until the political gets personal. It has been a rough year for Alex. In the past twelve months, he has lost his best friend, become the target of the two biggest bullies at school, and been sentenced to community service. On June 25, 2013, he gets a call for help from Cassie Ramirez, the prettiest girl in school. Finally, he feels like his luck might be changing. 

Cassie is at the Texas State Capitol to protest lawmaker Wendy Davis’s filibuster and take a pro-life stand—and she’s rallying everyone she knows to join her.

Alex shows up to what turns out to be a madhouse of activists either opposing abortion like Cassie or opposing the law stripping women of their rights to choose an abortion like Wendy. Cassie makes an impassioned and genuine case for why she and her fellow blue-shirts are here, a case that may sound familiar or entirely foreign to you, depending on what house you were raised in.

And he meets former friends, teachers, and an overwhelming number of women in orange shirts, who have been here for days testifying to indifferent legislators, telling their personal and heart wrenching stories why abortion access is important to them.

Alex is caught in the middle.

This is the story of Alex’s political awakening, and it’s a tale we can all learn from if we want to make a difference on any issue we care about. The pace of the story reads like a gripping football game or epic fantasy battle, and the stakes are much higher.

Solomon covered the actual historical event for the Austin Chronicle, and his journalist’s eye sees a lot of what a day like this looks like to most people. We might picture a big protest and heroic filibuster by imagining the speeches and the chanting in the room where it happened. We might imagine the nail-biting and deeply moving moments leading up to midnight and the climax of the book. But for anyone who wants to join a protest or lobby their representatives, it’s the basement rooms full of people on their phones, following along on TV screens, eating donated pizza, standing in line, the awkward moment when your elevator is full of your opponents—these are the moments you’ll experience.

And you won’t experience them if you don’t show up. Alex faces a major decision once he arrives at the Capitol and has to decide what he believes. He’s confronted by a whirlwind of ideas and feelings he’d never encountered previously, but it’s the decision to show up that is his most important.

The feeling of being part of something enormous? That powerlessness and rage you feel when someone offhandedly dismisses the most emotional event in your life? The breathless anticipation as someone’s heroic stand looks likely to succeed against all odds? The shellshocked feeling in the aftermath, and people somehow carry on with normal tasks, just gathering up their belongings and taking out the trash? Did it matter today? Will it still matter tomorrow? Those are real feelings too.  And you only get those from showing up.

Do yourself a favor, show up and read this book.

– Matt Gill