This is a great book with a mix of sci-fi thriller and almost a bit of horror. It's a story where almost everything is interlinked in a strange yet specific way meaning that everything either does or doesn't make sense.
This book focuses mainly on a boy called Seth. He has a mysterious backstory of which more and more gets revealed as you read on but it keeps giving you hints about something terrible that happened to his younger brother Owen which Seth doesn't always reveal all the information about. This instance affects Seth's whole life and although he has friends and a loving family he is always living with the guilt and remorse for his brother. These events all lead up to him dying (I won't say how) but on the blurb it gives a description like this
A boy drowns, desperate and alone in his his final moments. He dies.
This, when explained shows just how traumatic and upsetting this book can be so be warned.
The book also focuses on two other characters which Seth becomes friends with, they are a boy called Tomasz and a girl called Regine. They both are quite wary about revealing their past but over time Regine becomes more open but Tomasz, who is suggested to have a worse past does not open up until then end of the book at a crucial moment.
I know you must be thinking what are they all about and how can Seth meet them if they're dead. Well I'm telling you this now and I am saying that the place they all ended up where they died is not like a waiting place or and in-between place between life and death this is not that kind of book. The place they all ended up they can all remember very vividly which seems to make them more and more confused. The reason for this is that they ended up exactly where they had previously lived before although it's not quite the same, they are the only people there and everything is abandoned but not broken as if everyone had left in a hurry leaving everything behind.
This suggests that Seth, Regine and Tomasz are almost a mistake, an accident, as if there's been some sort of glitch. This leads us onto the next character we meet who Regine and Tomasz obviously call the Driver, who appears man-like but dresses completely in black with a racer's helmet on who drives a black van, and he drives the black van after the three children. The driver plays a big part in the story as it automatically tells the reader that the children aren't meant to be there and he has been sent to almost fix them and to take them to where they're meant to be (these are just my thoughts in depends on how deeply you think about a book)! I will stop there about describing the story before I spoil it completely as I get more and more exciting!!!
The main reason I just love this book is about reading it from different people's perspectives in flashbacks so two of my favourite things rolled into one!!! I love the fact that they keep referring to the characters' pasts but not always telling you everything so as to draw you in and intrigue you more and also I love the way this is written and I love the vocabulary used to describe everything that in itself is a work of art! I also use this book to take vocabulary in it and use it for my own writing mainly at school, in fact the only reason I'm in top set English is that I read so much and that I try and take in as much vocabulary as I can hence the fact of how much I love this book!!!
I recommend this book for probably 13 or 14 plus mainly because of the fact that it's such a hard concept to get round so you really just have to be old enough to understand it. Also I think that some bits of it might be quite upsetting but everything is resolved I promise you!
I also recommend this book for any massive Doctor Who fans like me as it's a definite sci-fi book but also anyone into horror, thrillers or mystery; perhaps not for hardcore romance readers but you could give it a go!!!
• Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop.
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