Nicci Cloke

A literary but rather plodding novel about the relationship between Jack and Elsa who meet on New Year’s Eve and end up moving to San Francisco together where their relationship very slowly sours.

It’s not badly written (for example the page-and-a-half description of Jack’s broken tooth was quite brilliant) but if I’m going to read a book this long that consists largely of mundane workaday stuff, people going to bars with their mates, taking a bus downtown etc, I want to at least feel emotionally invested in them. We had very little backstory, very little idea of who Jack and Elsa were when the story began (though Elsa has a sister called Anna which I found quite amusing), in fact this was clearly deliberate as the whole point of the book seemed to be to bring their stories up to date by means of brief flashbacks. Most of the book’s drama lies in the flashbacks which were brief and sketchy. We spent so much time following them around San Francisco waiting for something to actually happen in the present day that I nearly lost the will to live. Too long, too understated, I was glad to finish it.… (mehr)

Good

I enjoyed 'Toxic'. To begin with I liked the book cover, I thought it looked cool, I also like the way the title has been wrote vertically down the spine, making it stand out from other books on the shelf. The author has made the characters and setting convincing, capturing what it's like to be young and on holiday for the first time as a young adult. The book focuses on the experience of three of the group who each tell their version of events, the holiday was made up of drinking too many fluorescent fish bowls and wondering about their lives and relationships, Though everything changes one morning when hope wakes up, alone and on the beach with no recollection of the night before, wondering how she got there and who her friends really are.… (mehr)

Aiden's first knowledge of his friend Lizzie's disappearance is when the cops show up at his door asking questions. Is he a suspect? He says he talked with her on-line but then they fell out of friendship last summer. Did she meet up with a predator on-line and get lured away? Or is it something to do with her older sister's appearances in a reality TV show set in Aiden's village? This is a mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. (I guessed SOME of the plot twists but not all.) A very well-written cautionary tale for older readers due to sex, violence, language, under age drinking, etc.… (mehr)