The Prized Girl

The Prized Girl by Amy K Green

Paperback, 384 pages

Published 20th February 2020 by HQ

(First published 1st January 2008)

Shelves: abuse, adult-fiction, better-than-expected, crime-thriller-mystery, death, lasting-impression, new-adult, rape, read, read-in-2021, realistic-fiction, really-good

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Days after a young teenager named Jenny is found murdered, her small town grieves the loss alongside her picture-perfect parents. At first glance, Jenny’s tragic death appears clear-cut for investigators. In the murder of a former pageant queen from a safe and loving family, the most obvious suspect is a fan who got too close for comfort. But Jenny’s sarcastic, older half-sister Virginia isn’t so sure of his guilt and takes matters into her own hands to find the killer.

But for Jenny’s case and and Virginia’s investigation, there’s more to the story. Virginia, still living in town and haunted by her own troubled teenage years, suspects that a similar darkness lay beneath the sparkling veneer of Jenny’s life. Alternating between Jenny’s final days and Virginia’s determined search for the truth, the sisters’ dual narratives follow a harrowing trail of suspects, with surprising turns that race toward a shocking finale.

I hadn't heard of The Prized Girl or of Amy K. Green before glancing upon this book in my local bookshop but I am so glad that I happened upon it. The book tells us of the story of Jenny, a young beauty queen who has been found tragically raped and murdered and her older sister's journey in trying to discover what happened to her. 

This book seems to be the perfect bridge between young adult and adult fiction, mainly featuring younger characters and recounting several school experiences, but has a storyline that will appeal to fans of crime stories and psychological thrillers and focusing on some adult themes. The characters were not overly developed but  still well written. Though I didn't feel much of a connection to them, I could've read about them for days. There are two timelines in the book, the story of the past, of Jenny, as we see what led up to the dramatic events which resulted in her untimely death and the story of the present, as told by Virginia as she unravels plenty of secrets and attempts to discover the truth. 

The storyline takes precedence in this book and it's clear that Green is a great storyteller. I was gripped from the start. Although I did manage to predict 'whodunnit' around two thirds of the way through, this never distracted from the enjoyment of the story as there was so much that was explored and revealed in the book. I was always wondering something and curious about how the timeline would fit together in the end. This really was a page turner and I was very reluctant to put it down. Although there was a lot going on in the book and there were many twists, turns and revelations it was easy to follow. I was also very pleased that everything felt succinctly wrapped up at the end, though thankfully not rushed. The author did a fantastic job with a truly engrossing plot.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book as it really captivated me and I sped through it! It was simply but eloquently written and an extremely compelling story which tackles several extreme subjects. The Prized Girl is definitely a book that I will be recommending and I would love to read more by Amy K. Green.

The Nothing Man

The Nothing Man by Catherine Ryan Howard

Paperback, 304 pages

Published 20th August 2020 by Corvus

Shelves: adult-fiction, arc-or-review, books-i-own, contemporary, crime-thriller-mystery, death, en-route, rape, read-in-2020, realistic-fiction

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

I was the girl who survived the Nothing Man.
Now I am the woman who is going to catch him...

You've just read the opening pages of The Nothing Man, the true crime memoir Eve Black has written about her obsessive search for the man who killed her family nearly two decades ago.

Supermarket security guard Jim Doyle is reading it too, and with each turn of the page his rage grows. Because Jim was - is - the Nothing Man.

The more Jim reads, the more he realizes how dangerously close Eve is getting to the truth. He knows she won't give up until she finds him. He has no choice but to stop her first...

I didn't really know what to expect when I was offered The Nothing Man for review - the description was vague, but intriguing. I am so glad I decided to read this book as it is both different and captivating, a book that is guaranteed to get almost anybody gripped.

The story starts by introducing us to The Nothing Man - a man called Jim Doyle who works as a supermarket security man, when he shockingly discovers that a book has been written about him. The book consists of alternating chapters, some consisting of Eve Black's novel and the rest from Jim's perspective, showing his reaction to the instantly popular publication.

The Nothing Man is a book inside a book. The book is written by Eve Black, a woman who was a witness to her sister and her parent's demise at the hands of The Nothing Man, a serial killer who prowled Ireland over twenty years ago, leaving a trail of devastation but absolutely no trace of his identity - hence his name. Eve is the only person to have witnessed and survived one of this man's crimes and makes it her mission to discover who this man is.

As some of you may know, I have had a deep interest in the Golden State Killer recently, since watching his trial and reading the late Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone In The Dark. In fact, that's the book that I read directly before this one, and I could see a lot of similarities with this story and the real life case. After contacting the author and reading the acknowledgements of this book, I discovered that Ryan Howard based this book on McNamara's. Whilst I understand that it's important to do research and to make the story realistic, the only reason I didn't rate this book higher was because it often felt like a carbon copy of the actions of the killer in I'll Be Gone In The Dark. However, if you haven't read McNamara's book or know about the Golden State Killer case in detail, I doubt that this will concern you at all. The author of this book did well to portray McNamara's message that once you discover who killer is, he really is nothing.

I really enjoyed this book from the very start. Both Eve and Jim were very well developed, interesting characters. The story was super compelling, the format only making it more so. I enjoyed the short chapters as they kept my attention and made it so easy just to tell myself 'just one more chapter' - this book is the definition of a 'page-turner'. This is a very well written,  well paced, engrossing read that will have you riveted until the very end. Highly recommended for anyone interested in thrillers, fictional or true crime reads. 

I'll Be Gone In The Dark

I'll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

Paperback, 344 pages

Published 28th February 2019 by Faber & Faber

Shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, crime-thriller-mystery, desperate-to-read, historical, lasting-impression, memoirs-biographies-etc, movies-or-tv, non-fiction, rape, read, read-in-2020, title-appeal

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

The masterful true crime account of the Golden State Killer - the serial rapist turned murderer who terrorised California for over a decade - from the late Michelle McNamara. I'll Be Gone in the Dark offers a unique snapshot of suburban West Coast America in the 1980s, and a chilling account of the wreckage left behind by a criminal mastermind. It is also a portrait of one woman's obsession and her unflagging pursuit of the truth, three decades later, in spite of the personal cost. Updated with material which takes in the extraordinary events that followed its initial publication, Michelle McNamara's first and last book is a contemporary classic - humane, haunting and heroic.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark is a book unlike any other that I've read. The book is beautifully written whilst describing a real-life horror story. This is the story of the late Michelle McNamara's obsessive search for an elusive monster. This is the story of the known attacks of The Golden State Killer, also known as The East Area Rapist, The Original Night Stalker, The Visalia Ransacker, The Diamond Knot Killer, and only more recently, Joseph James DeAngelo. 

It is difficult to review this book and it's difficult to read too, which is part of its success. Quotes on the book cover state that this is a book that you can't put down, it's something to read in one-sitting, but for me it was completely the opposite. The writing is indeed gripping and compulsive, but also frighteningly vivid. It can be a difficult book to digest due to the content and it's important to take breaks in order to really appreciate  exactly what you've just read, to absorb the impact that the events of the book had on the victims and the wider community of California. Whilst I was gripped by the crimes and mystery - as I was and I am - this is a book that I had to consciously keep putting down in order to reflect upon whilst still eager to get back to. 

McNamara's prose is surprisingly beautiful despite often describing such violent content. This is a book that is so well written, the crimes so clearly portrayed that it is guaranteed to have a lasting effect on any reader. The Golden State Killer stalked, burglarised, bound, raped, psychologically tortured and tormented his victims before going on to murder some. McNamara uses all of her collected evidence and investigative skills to bring these crimes to life on paper, not being afraid to share small, intimate details whilst still never overstating and always showing respect to the victims. This entire book is a fantastic piece of investigative journalism, but for me, the stand-out part was Michelle's final piece of writing that was included, entitled "Letter to an Old Man" - her imagination of the Golden State Killer's eventual arrest, where it's almost as though she foreshadowed his eventual capture.

Admittedly, the book does seem a little disjointed at places, both due to the fact that it's not written chronologically and that it was partially written/edited posthumously, but this doesn't distract from McNamara's apparent talent for writing, her brilliant investigative and journalistic skills as well as her sheer dedication and determination. I also enjoyed seeing how she gained the trust of detectives and police departments. Her untimely sudden death only adds more sadness to the whole story. The fact that she didn't finally get to discover the GSK's true identity is heartbreaking and I truly wish that she had been able to watch Joseph DeAngelo's arrest and sentencing. Thankfully, her main wish did however come true and we now know exactly who the Golden State Killer is - that is partially with thanks to Michelle's hard work, relentless research and her publicity of the case.

Before reading this book, I did have some general knowledge about The Golden State Killer, learned from the documentary series Unmasking a Killer and some internet searches. Here in the UK, he is not well known and the known crimes were committed before I was born - I first heard about him after his arrest. I read I'll Be Gone In The Dark in the week during DeAngelo's sentencing, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment. I really feel like I have watched, and now have read, an important piece of criminal history. 

This is a book and a case that will stay with me for a long time and that I will continue to follow. I highly recommend I'll Be Gone In The Dark to anybody who is interested in true crime, criminology, forensic science or investigative journalism. It has really made me see not only the Golden State Killer, but all undiscovered serious criminals, in a new perspective. 

The TV adaptation of I'll Be Gone in the Dark, produced by HBO, is available to watch in the UK from today (30th August) on the Sky Crime Channel, but be sure to read the book first! 

Hurt

Hurt by Tabitha Suzuma

Hardback, 416 pages

Published 5th September by Bodley Head
Shelves: arc-or-review, books-i-own, young-adult, realistic-fiction, read-in-2013, rape, mental-health, if-i-were-a-boy, abuse 

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

At seventeen, Matheo Walsh is Britain's most promising diving champion. He is wealthy, popular - and there's Lola, the girlfriend of his dreams.

But then there was that weekend. A weekend he cannot bring himself to remember. All he knows is that what happened has changed him.

Matheo is faced with the most devastating choice of his life. Keep his secret, and put those closest to him in terrible danger. Or confess, and lose Lola for ever...

Having heard about the creation of Hurt, I was so eager to get my hands on a copy as soon as it was released. I have only read one of Suzuma's previous books (A Voice In the Distance), but I really enjoyed it and I admired the way she tackled a difficult subject. It seems like that is this author's speciality - tackling those real-life, gritty subjects that really do need to be addressed. I'm certainly not one to shy away from these issues and so I couldn't wait to pick it up.

Our main character is Matheo, a diving champion, who we first meet in his bedroom, in a confused mess the night after his attack. Mattheo doesn't remember much about what happened to him the night before and it's slowly revealed to us as he himself begins to recall the events and starts opening up to his girlfriend, Lola. Personally, I didn't really connect to the characters in this book. At first, they're simply displayed as your cliché private school kids, then we later (sort of) get to see how they handle Matheo's secret. The other significant other than Matheo was his girlfriend, Lola, who I didn't not like, but who I didn't really warm or connect to - she didn't really seem to have much of a personality and I didn't know who she was, apart from being Matheo's partner. Saying that, we don't really get to know much about any of the characters, just how they react to a certain situation. 

Hurt is a book that tackles an emotional subject - one that I won't name as it is clouded in mystery until it's revealed quite late in the book. I predicted what had happened to Matheo very quickly - whilst I didn't know exactly how he came to be in the situation he was in, or who the other party was, I thought it was blindingly obvious what had happened to him. I think that this was a major flaw of the book for me.  I spent a lot of this book just waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more just to read what I already thought. A lot of the book relied on tension and build up to the revelation of the event, but to me it was just so obvious and so any tension just fell flat  for me - I sort of just wanted the author to get on with it, get to the point, and to face up to the issue, to do something about it, something that packed a real punch. I won't deny that I didn't guess everything, there was a twist that I wasn't expecting, but unfortunately it came a little too late for me.

The book was well written for the most part, I liked Suzuma's descriptive style and it was initially enjoyable to read, but after a while, it did begin to feel repetitive and the amount of description was on the line of becoming tedious. There was not enough substance to the first part of this book in order to make it exciting or easy to connect to. I admire Suzuma for writing about an emotional subject, but unfortunately, for me, there was not enough personal depth to the characters in order to make it work. I am definitely not  saying that this is a bad book, but rather that it was a predictable one and that's why, for me, it wasn't an entire success.

The Casual Vacancy

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Hardback, 503 pages

Published 27th September 2012 by Little, Brown

My shelves: abuse, adult-fiction, awful-cover, books-i-own, death, drink-and-drugs, let-down, lgbt-characters, medical-conditions, mental-health, rape, read, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction, self-harm, suicide, too-much-hype

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

When Barry Fairbrother dies in his early forties, the town of Pagford is left in shock.

Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war.

Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils...Pagford is not what it first seems.

And the empty seat left by Barry on the parish council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations?

The Casual Vacancy is J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults.

Buy this book:

The Book Depository / Amazon (US/INT) / Amazon UK

My thanks go to Little Brown for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I don't really know where to begin with this book. Very rarely, I avoid reviewing certain books - I haven't reviewed a few of the big names in books (Harry Potter, The Hunger Games) as I find it very difficult to try and review such widely read and highly acclaimed books. I didn't know whether or not I'd review this one - J.K. Rowling is probably the biggest author out there at the moment and there will already be a lot of reviews for The Casual Vacancy. However, as a dedicated book blogger, I decided that I'd give reviewing this a go! 

Despite the excitement surrounding The Casual Vacancy, I must admit that I wasn't really that excited about it. Sure, I love Harry Potter, but I knew that it would be something entirely different. On the release of the blurb of the book, I was underwhelmed - I thought that the story sounded quite dull and uninteresting. However, the fact that this was written by the Queen of today's literature, I still wanted to try it, at least. All that aside, when it was release day I had the need to get out and buy the book - I just had to have it (I actually ended up with two copies, one bought and one for review)!

Onto the book and the story itself... it's difficult to describe it, really, as I still have no idea how I feel about it - in one way I liked it, but at the same time I hated a lot of things about it. The thing about this book is that the main, interesting events happened in the first ten or so pages and the last fifty or so - this meant that the four hundred plus pages in between became tedious. The story revolves around around the fact that there is a Casual Vacancy in Pagford's council. I have to be honest and before reading this, I had no idea what a casual vacancy was and even after finding out, I don't know anyone who would care if there was a casual vacancy in our area. However, there was plenty of substance and the characters were certainly well developed, as expected. There was a definite history behind the village of Pagford and of the characters who lived there. 

Before I read this book, I read that some people were criticising it due to the adult themes and the amount of swearing in the book - I thought that was ridiculous - why should a book aimed at adults be criticised for such things? After reading, I can understand why it bothered people. I still stand by my thoughts that an adult book should have adult themes - it's not exactly wrong. I can understand why people were uncomfortable by this book. All of us associate Rowling with Harry Potter and a lot of people see her as a gentle figure to look up to. I didn't think I'd be affected, but yes - I did feel weird reading some of the sexual references at first. Thankfully, it was easy to get over after a while and I got used to it. 

However, I do feel as though Rowling was trying to put too many adult issues into the book. I enjoy reading about taboo subjects and serious issues, but I don't like to be overwhelmed by them. Amongst other things, abuse, death, substance abuse, mental health issues, self harm and suicide were all explored in this book. Although very emotive subjects, they didn't weigh me down and I didn't find them hard to read about - but sometimes that difficulty of reading about them is what makes them so effective. I was taken by one of the main characters, Krystal Weedon's case, but she was the only character I could really feel for - though the others were reasonably developed, I found it difficult to empathise with so many characters at once and the rest of them never seemed to grab me or strike me as someone important to listen to or to read about. 

The Casual Vacancy is a very political books, but to be honest, 1. I don't want to get into politics in one of my book reviews and really and 2. this book didn't have a massive impact on me nor my thoughts. Actually, I am not entirely sure what the message of this book was as I battled through most of it. I do think that Rowling made a superb job of putting across the fact that some people are like Krystal and have to live her difficult life, but I don't think the book was very balanced. The Weedon's issues were interesting to read about, but I felt that they overshadowed some of the serious problems that the other characters also faced. 

Overall, I don't think that this is a poorly written book but, for the most part, it bored me. There is so much thrown into this book, but for me, it was certainly not exciting nor particularly memorable. If someone told me that they wanted to read it, I wouldn't discourage them - I realise that there will be people who are into the deeper political messages of this book, but unfortunately I'm not one of those people. J.K. Rowling still stays in my mind as a phenomenal writer with a fantastic imagination and despite my difficulties with this book, I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another of her books.

Listen to the song that features most in The Casual Vacancy - I have to admit that I think that every time I hear this in the future, I'll think of Krystal Weedon.

Black Heart Blue

Black Heart Blue by Louisa Reid

Paperback, 266 pages

Published May 10th 2012 by Puffin

My shelves: abuse, arc-or-review, books-i-own, death, drink-and-drugs, medical-conditions, mental-health, misery-lit, rape, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction, to-be-reviewed, young-adult

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Hephzibah: You've no idea what it's like having a freak for a sister.

Rebecca: Born first, prettier, Hephzi's always been the popular one.

The Father: When he was busy with his bottle we were usually safe. Usually.

The Mother: Her specialist subject was misery and lessons of painful silence ...

Hepzibah and Rebecca are twins. One beautiful, one disfigured. Trapped with their loveless parents, they dream of a normal life. But when one twin tragically dies, the other must find a way to escape. Because if she doesn't, she'll end up like her sister.

Click here to purchase the book with

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My thanks go to Puffin for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

I've actually waited a couple of days before reviewing this book and I think that I made the right decision to do that. Black Heart Blue is definitely a haunting book and I think that I appreciate it more now that I've had even more time to reflect on it. I think that this will be a book that lingers in my mind for quite a long time.


On the very first page of this story is a verse from Sylvia Plath's poem, Daddy. I absolutely adore Sylvia Plath, so when I read the verse, I was so excited that I was maybe going to read something that was so marvellously interlinked, but I was also scared that the story was going to be a disappointment - in my eyes, it's quite a big thing to try and follow on after a Plath verse! Thankfully, I think that using the poem was the right thing to do - Reid definitely did it justice with the story that followed.


Black Heart Blue follows the life of two twins - the well rounded and beautiful Hepzibah (Hepzhi) and her disfigured sister, Rebecca. We learn right from the start that Hepzhi has died and we discover exactly how and why as we progress through the book. I thought that the format of the book was really well done. Hepzhi narrates chapters 'before' her death so that we get a clear picture of what life was like for the twins. On the other hand, Rebecca narrates the time after Hepzhi's death and what it meant not just for her, but her family and the community around them. Writing this way meant that we learnt so much about both twins and they were so well developed. The twins had a very troubled past (and present) and we can see this in so many ways - their behaviour, their emotions and through other people's actions towards them. Everything that was explored felt so realistic and had a lot of depth, despite the shortness of the book. We were introduced to several characters including the granny of the twins, Hephzi's boyfriend, her friends, members in the community such as a church assistant and people who Rebecca worked with, as well as non-immediate family members. Every single person in this story seemed to matter and they each contributed something to the story. I was absolutely fascinated with how everyone interacted. 


It seems wrong to say that I enjoyed this book due to the subject matter. I didn't really enjoy it as such - there wasn't anything that made me feel very happy, but instead, I appreciated it. I really appreciated how well Reid had portrayed the lives of Hephzi and Rebecca - there were no holds barred on the content - this is a story that involves abuse and a whole lot more. Whilst the events weren't overly graphic or descriptive, they were unbelievably powerful. As aforementioned, the words were haunting. There was a seriously sinister undertone and it worked seriously well.


This is a book that I will recommend to others who are looking for a different read to your usual YA - I'm glad that there's something different to the usual 'boy meets girl' or paranormal subjects. This is definitely not a book for younger teens but for older teens and I know a lot of adults that would appreciate the work that's been put into this too. I look forward to more of Reid's work in the future.

The Storyteller

The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis
Hardcover, 416 pages

Published January 1st 2012 by Amulet Books

My shelves: abuse, arc-or-review, better-than-expected, books-i-own, contemporary, cover-appeal, currently-reading, fantasy, mystery-crime, rape, read-in-2012, realistic-fiction, really-good, suicide, translated, young-adult

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

Anna and Abel couldn't be more different. They are both seventeen and in their last year of school, but while Anna lives in a nice old town house and comes from a well-to-do family, Abel, the school drug dealer, lives in a big, prisonlike tower block at the edge of town. Anna is afraid of him until she realizes that he is caring for his six-year-old sister on his own. Fascinated, Anna follows the two and listens as Abel tells little Micha the story of a tiny queen assailed by dark forces. It's a beautiful fairy tale that Anna comes to see has a basis in reality. Abel is in real danger of losing Micha to their abusive father and to his own inability to make ends meet. Anna gradually falls in love with Abel, but when his "enemies" begin to turn up dead, she fears she has fallen for a murderer. Has she?

Award-winning author Antonia Michaelis moves in a bold new direction with her latest novel: a dark, haunting, contemporary story that is part mystery, part romance, and part melodrama.

My thanks go to Amulet Books for sending me this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a book that completely and utterly blew me away! I admit that I was a little daunted by it at first. The premise sounded good, but I was slightly unsure about the fairy tale element of it - a lot of the time, this just doesn't work for me. This also book is reasonably thick with small font, and I always have to finish books that I start, so I really, really hoped that this was good. The Storyteller wasn't good though, it was amazing. I don't know if much was lost in translation from German to English, but the result was still beautiful.

This book seems to have a little something for everyone. I'd class it as Young Adult, but it is bordering on being adult fiction. There is a contemporary, somewhat coming of age aspect to this book. There are mysteries, at points it becomes a thriller with crimes that we are wanting to solve. There is a fantasy aspect, as The Storyteller tells us a fairy tale - but it's also very much real, the events in the story reflecting real-life. The fairytale is a form of escapism against the harsh reality and a form of communication between our three main characters.

This is a very vivid and dark novel. I wouldn't say that it's sinister as such, but there is something about it that is haunting and disturbing. It deals with a whole lot of very difficult subjects. The setting feels stark, cold and true to life. The pace is quite relaxed from the beginning until the last quarter of the book, where things really speed up. Although the pace was relaxed, I never became bored. Reading about both the fairy tale world and the real world was equally fascinating. There was always something that I wanted to know more about, especially when we were given not one, but two murder mysteries.

We are introduced to a lot of different characters in this story but, thankfully, it doesn't become confusing. Every character plays an important part and have strong foundations. Our main characters are Anna, a girl from a well-to-do family and an intriguing boy whom she meets at her school, Abel, who lives with his young sister, Micha, in a prison-like tower block. All three of these characters are unbelievably complex and watching their relationships develop and change is very interesting. Their worlds are very different, but seeing how they work together and the contrast of their lives has a very strong effect. Anna and Abel's relationship was hesitant but natural. They certainly worked well together and the chemistry was there. 

Abel does everything he can to protect his little sister, Micha - he is more of a father figure to her. This protectiveness is admirable and understandable. It really made me warm to Abel, despite some uncertainty that I did have about him. He is such a well developed character and I really did sympathise with him. At points I adored him and at points I simply hated his choices. There is a lot of different layers to him and towards the end, when I was discovering more and more about him, it actually became a little painful. It was heart and gut wrenching. During the last quarter of the book, my emotions were thrown around a lot, with Michaelis revealing so many secrets and some of the answers to questions that were in the back of my mind from the start. I can imagine that a lot of people will be displeased with what happens nearing the end as it is shocking and very raw - the author doesn't hold anything back.

There is a lot more to this book than I can mention in a review, especially without including spoilers. I would recommend this to anyone who is aged 16+ who feels as though they could deal with some dark issues and that want a thrilling, enthralling read. Prepare to have your emotions tested and to have story stay with you for a long time after finishing it. I wouldn't hesitate to pick up another book by Michaelis, this was very different and truly fantastic. A book that certainly makes an impact.