Jack Croxall

This book reads a bit like Jack Croxall was trying to win the Olympics for use of adjectives. It was quite amazing and often distracting how many adjectives he managed to cram into every single sentence. And every chapter ended on a Super Dramatic Cliffhanger! That was fun too.

That said, the story was quite ok, although Karl was an idiot. But then, that was actually a rather realistic portrayal of kids that age (I know, I've been there). There was a lot of action, and bravery, and running away from caretakers, and saving people, and special powers, and villains, and friendships, and duelling.

I liked the implications of the stone showing things about itself that would never have happened if the stone hadn't shown them, which makes you wonder where the event originated.

I'm probably no longer the right audience for this book, but I'm sure there will be heaps of people captivated by it.… (mer)

X was recommended to me but I don't know why or where. It may have even been an algorithm recommendation. Although I don't think I'll ever figure it out, I downloaded it knowing that it was short but assuming that it was a novella. It isn't.

Not only isn't it a short book... It's one of the shortest short stories I've ever read. It clocks in at a whopping 28 pages and that includes the title page and the fact that some pages contain only a few sentences.

I share all of this with you not to minimise the story but, on the contrary, to highlight just what an accomplishment this (very) short story is.

In the blink of an eye Croxall allows X, the young author of the diary we are reading, to introduce herself. She's locked in a cellar by herself, hiding from what I assume are infected zombies and has just decided to start a diary to document what she assumes are her last days alive. She chooses to call herself X because it adds an air of mystery but admits that her railcard is in her purse in case the finder of the diary absolutely needs to know her real name. She goes on to document why she's down there, what happened to her family, and how she's getting by. Day by day we know a little more.

And in a few short pages I came to like her, I was interested and invested, I rooted for her... And that's really something.

Then, just like that, the story was over and I had feelings about it. And that's a very impressive feat. I just wish I had a little bit more time with X.… (mer)

I typically don't read dystopian stories, or anything with zombies, so I'm not sure what made me decide to try Wye, but I'm not sorry I did. It's virtually impossible to review this book without massive spoilers, but suffice to say, Jack Croxall surprised me several times during the course of this quick read. There were two major things I did not see coming, and that contributed very much to my overall liking of the book. I also really enjoyed the writing style - formatting it as journal entries allowed Croxall to really dig deep into Wye's head and what she was thinking and feeling, and that set this apart from other similarly themed books. For a reader who is not a fan of "this type" of book, this was a pretty great read.… (mer)