Review: A Monster Calls

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second book that has made me cry. The other book made me cry because of real world events as much as because of the book itself.

This book made me cry because it was beautiful and painful... and truthful.


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Review: Hacker

Hacker by Malorie Blackman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Worth saying at the start that I am not the target audience... but I enjoyed this book anyway.

The Computing is extremely dated but right for the time it was written; Malorie had clearly done her homework. So, a big thumbs up from Computing Scientist me.

The grown up me can’t help but think the story would have been much shorter if, at any number of points, one of the children had just spoken to an adult. The young teen me though would have understood why they didn’t, would have felt things as intensely as the characters (...my parents will get divorced if I fail my Maths exam!) and would have told my grown up self to shut up.

Teacher me got really annoyed at the dad’s defence to the headteacher (“Are you calling my daughter a liar?”). Young teen me would have said, “You tell her, dad!”

What can I say? I enjoyed this book. Young teen me would have enjoyed it even more.

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