Book Review: Devotion by Ros Barber

The cover is better than the book.

April is angry. Only nineteen, April is an elective mute, accused of a religiously motivated atrocity.  Dr Finlay Logan is broken, a borderline suicidal criminal psychologist, still reeling from his daughter's death. He must assess her sanity in a world where - ten years after the death of Richard Dawkins - moves have been made to classify religious believes as a form of mental illness. 
Both April and Finley struggle to understand what happened to them

Asking fundamental questions about the nature of reality, Barber skilfully explores the balance between the emotional and rational sides of human experience. 

Sharing Secrets, silence and inability to deal with the world around them. Gently unpicking the lives of these broken characters.

This book was disappointing. I read this book mainly because Skulls and 'Elective Mutism'. Skulls on the cover and it's cool cover. Makes senses with the actual plot. There's no Elective Mutism in this book or the more modern term of Selective Mutism. It's always fun where stories set in the future have outdated terms. Even acknowledging the old definition, it's used just to be smart more than describing April; who is deciding not to speak to her count appointed Psychologist, Logan who will decide her whether she insane or not.

Going off the description, I thought it would be a dual protagonists, but it's very much Logan's story and the effect he will have on April's final outcome. This puts me in the awkward situation as I read this as part of the silent protagonist review video series I'm doing. I have seen better summaries that rightly focus on Logan. Moving on.

So Logan is a bland, male that cheats and has done terrible things to woman and his children.

The prose is fine. I didn't think about it until I seen other people talking it. It has that whole literature thing going on. It's fine.

The plot is half-arsed questioning god, but also not really. Its end up being more about choices and the whole butterfly effect thing again. Its deals with mental heath and with several characters having bad mental health. Though, they all have had fucked up stuff have happened to them. This book raises questions to abandoned them. It's fine. The classifying religion as mental illness, only deals with the type fundamentalism that involves blindly killing yourself for the cause; that's badly defined and go against your actual religion's beliefs so probably should be.

Overall, I give this book 3/5 stars for ill-advise charity events. This book brings nothing new to the table but is also not terrible. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't had such mislead ideas about what it was about. It's fine. There's nothing to rave for or against. If you like the idea, go for it.

Book Review: The Girl Who Wouldn't Die by Marnie Riches

The author asked me to do a Amazon review. She didn't know I read a review copy and that was weird.

HE’S WATCHING HER. SHE DOESN’T KNOW IT…YET

When a bomb explodes at the University of Amsterdam, aspiring criminologist Georgina McKenzie is asked by the police to help flush out the killer.

But the bomb is part of a much bigger, more sinister plot that will have the entire city quaking in fear.

And the killer has a very special part for George to play…

This is your basic Thriller, Crime book with some fun things thrown in such as being set in Amsterdam.

The title of this book is terrible and I'm not sure what it has to do with the book. The book it's self is much better.

The mystery side of this book was pretty basic. As soon as the character was introduced who was behind it, I knew it was him.

The romance in this book is just there and doesn't add anything to the story. I did root for it, but that might have been because the alternative option was far worse. It got a tad bit annoying.

Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars for cardboard. Most of these stars came from enjoyment.

I got this book for review off Netgalley and from Maze.

Book Review: Bomb by Sarah Mussi

Neither of these seem like healthy relationships.



My head's ringing. And I'm cold, lying here on my back. And stiff. I can't seem to sit up. And something's dripping, like I'm in a cavern. There's a sour taste in my mouth.
I raise my head and open my eyes. A blinding flash slices, like white fire, through the edge of my vision.
Where am I?
'Hello? Anyone there?' 

When Genesis goes on a blind internet date, she just wants to get over her ex-boyfriend Naz. Just wants someone to like her again. But when Genesis wakes up the morning after the date, she can't remember a thing. She doesn't know where she is, or how she got there. And she can hardly move because she is strapped into some kind of body armour ... and there's some sort of earpiece stuck in her ear.

And then a voice sounds in her head: 'You have been chosen for an assignment ... The vest you're wearing is packed with high explosives. And with one mobile call we can detonate it.'

To her horror, Genesis has become an agent of mass destruction. The countdown to detonation begins NOW...

This book features a fictional terrorist organisation recruiting the youth of the day and is very topical because you know the mass of British Student joining ISIS and fact this book starts with a quote about them. This make sense as topic for YA books and I'm surprised that there isn't a pageant of books dealing with this issue coming out.

The Terrorist are religionist and sexist so they worship the sun and have no links to any real religions.There was a weird aspect to this book relating to their mythology and Genesis has this thing, I have no thoughts, don't know what it means to this story and world.

This book is separated into three parts and those parts are lists which I liked. I thought it was nice feature.

This book doesn't have a clear ending which is interesting. Especially, as I didn't care that much about the characters. There was a lot of background information given. Maybe it has to do with meeting the character after they were in grave danger and never evolved into real people. There is romances that felt rather plain.

Overall, I give this book three out of five out of stars for yellow hair dye. I like this idea, the execution could have been better. Though, I do think it's worth a read.

I got this book for review off NetGalley and it is published by Hodder Children's Books.