About the book
The Bunker
Diary is a young adult novel by Kevin Brooks. The book was published by Penguin
on 7th March and it is 272 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for
providing me with a copy for review.
Plot Synopsis (Taken from the back
of the book)
I can’t
believe I fell for it.
It was
still dark when I woke up this morning. As soon as my eyes opened I knew where
I was. A low-ceilinged rectangular building made entirely of whitewashed
concrete. There are six little rooms along the main corridor. There are no
windows. No doors. The lift is the only way in or out. What’s he going to do to
me? What am I going to do?
If I’m
right, the lift will come down in five minutes.
It did.
Only this
time it wasn’t empty…
What I thought
I
absolutely adore Kevin Brooks’ writing and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a
copy of his newest release. The synopsis is extremely intriguing and it barely
gives anything away so I was excited to see what this book was all about.
Linus was a
fantastic protagonist and a wonderful narrator. His voice is very unique and his
personality shines through. The Bunker Diary is told in diary form, as the
title would suggest. Linus begins by telling the reader where he is, or where
he thinks he is, and the events which led him to be there. Linus is from a
semi-wealthy family but has been living rough on the streets of London. You don’t
get to find out why until later in the book. He explains that he woke up
somewhere that only has six rooms, that he was drugged and he has no idea why
or who would want to do that to him.
Linus’
strong voice made it possible to really understand the situation he was in. The
first few chapters were non-stop and very exciting. Linus panics a lot during
the beginning of the book and rightly so. His fear and worries were what made
everything so tense. Not only that though, Brooks’ descriptive writing helps
the reader to picture the hell hole that Linus is stuck in. With the diary
style narrative, Brooks gives short sentences, short paragraphs, bits that don’t
really go with anything else and I loved his style of writing in this book. I
found it to be different from his other books but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
As there
are six rooms, it was inevitable that more people would be joining Linus. I
wasn’t sure whether I was going to like this at first but when they started to
arrive, I decided that I loved the mix of characters and personalities.
Everyone stuck there with Linus was very different from the next person and all
come from a variety of backgrounds. This worked well for a number of reasons
but mainly the personalities clashing was what made this book even more
exciting. This is where The Bunker Diary began to remind me of the Saw films.
With someone watching above somewhere, people put together for some kind of
reason and a whole range of other things happening instantly made me think of
the film series.
The Bunker
Diaries was scarier than I imagined it to be. I think the levels of scariness
all depends on what scares you though. For me, there were a couple of parts in
particular that I really couldn’t handle. I was reading this while on a train
home and I had to shut it numerous times. If I had been at home, I would have
put it in the freezer for a bit because some parts were just that scary for me.
Kevin Brooks’ writing has the ability to make your heart pound, for you to be
scared witless of what will happen next and for you to have hope for his characters.
The ending
of this book was a complete shocker and it had me absolutely stunned. While the
ending wasn’t expected, I’m still a little on the fence as to whether I liked
it or not. So many things were left unanswered but it also left me thinking about
what the outcome could have been for a long time after I finished reading the
book.
Kevin
Brooks has done it again. The Bunker Diary was a fantastic read and one which
had me from the first page.
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