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A review by titanic
Berserk by Ally Kennen
2.0
"It was Devil who had my finger..."
This story had a very weird starting, and it continued throughout the book and I thought that was really interesting. Chas gets the tip of his finger chopped off, and I've read a handful of books where an injury is forgotten about within a few pages or it's magically healed but the author didn't do that. I got a sense of time passing with how the finger healed, and it was refreshing to read a book where someone was injured and they actually suffered problems because of it. He had pus, and pain and embarrassment and it made me happy to read about. It was continually mentioned in the book in such a way that it reminded you that this was how the book started, teenagers messing about, and the results had led to this. It was really fascinating.
I did get heavily let down with the book though because although it was a good read, it was nothing like it said it was. The blurb screams: boy writes to killer and danger happens. And with a quote "An absolute nail-biter..." by the Sunday Times on the front, I expected this to be a hardcore book with threatening letters, and somehow the killer escaped, and he's hunting down this kid, and everything is spooky and set in Winter where it gets dark earlier so that it's more of a scarier setting, but it's not. Instead, you have a stuttering man, skinny and pale sending four letters during Summer. Not exactly a nail-biter. This book is 320 pages, and I could easily write it in less than that.
Lenny, the killer, gets acquitted not long after receiving the letters, (WHAT A SHOCKER!) and chases down his school bullies. Only finding one, he dates his school bullies ex and makes her cry a lot. Then traps her child, plus his other bullies children in a crane. Shoots a few bullets, which isn't very realistic in the UK, and then goes after one of the original bullies. The book is told in the perspective of Chas' point of view, and it's very focused on him and his life more than it is on the storyline of the killer coming from America and trying to get revenge or whatever it is he wants. You're practically halfway through when he's let out of youth prison, and it takes a while for things to start happening in relation the Lenny and the justice he wants. I mean, things really get good when they're at the construction site but even that got a bit eye-rolling, in all honesty. I expected more horror from this book.
Seriously, the best bit of this entire book was when Lexi told Lenny she was the daughter of Satan. Although it doesn't make sense as her brother goes by the name Devil and Satan is another name for Devil, right? I don't know, it felt weird reading it. Another bit I liked, was that the author wrote about a mentally ill character, you don't often see them, and if you do they're made to be horrible, but Ally did a great job in making his mother human, and lovable. The way she wrote Chas to be protective of her warmed my heart because people are actually like that in real life and when you get characters that mimic human nature it's flattering.
This story had a very weird starting, and it continued throughout the book and I thought that was really interesting. Chas gets the tip of his finger chopped off, and I've read a handful of books where an injury is forgotten about within a few pages or it's magically healed but the author didn't do that. I got a sense of time passing with how the finger healed, and it was refreshing to read a book where someone was injured and they actually suffered problems because of it. He had pus, and pain and embarrassment and it made me happy to read about. It was continually mentioned in the book in such a way that it reminded you that this was how the book started, teenagers messing about, and the results had led to this. It was really fascinating.
I did get heavily let down with the book though because although it was a good read, it was nothing like it said it was. The blurb screams: boy writes to killer and danger happens. And with a quote "An absolute nail-biter..." by the Sunday Times on the front, I expected this to be a hardcore book with threatening letters, and somehow the killer escaped, and he's hunting down this kid, and everything is spooky and set in Winter where it gets dark earlier so that it's more of a scarier setting, but it's not. Instead, you have a stuttering man, skinny and pale sending four letters during Summer. Not exactly a nail-biter. This book is 320 pages, and I could easily write it in less than that.
Lenny, the killer, gets acquitted not long after receiving the letters, (WHAT A SHOCKER!) and chases down his school bullies. Only finding one, he dates his school bullies ex and makes her cry a lot. Then traps her child, plus his other bullies children in a crane. Shoots a few bullets, which isn't very realistic in the UK, and then goes after one of the original bullies. The book is told in the perspective of Chas' point of view, and it's very focused on him and his life more than it is on the storyline of the killer coming from America and trying to get revenge or whatever it is he wants. You're practically halfway through when he's let out of youth prison, and it takes a while for things to start happening in relation the Lenny and the justice he wants. I mean, things really get good when they're at the construction site but even that got a bit eye-rolling, in all honesty. I expected more horror from this book.
Seriously, the best bit of this entire book was when Lexi told Lenny she was the daughter of Satan. Although it doesn't make sense as her brother goes by the name Devil and Satan is another name for Devil, right? I don't know, it felt weird reading it. Another bit I liked, was that the author wrote about a mentally ill character, you don't often see them, and if you do they're made to be horrible, but Ally did a great job in making his mother human, and lovable. The way she wrote Chas to be protective of her warmed my heart because people are actually like that in real life and when you get characters that mimic human nature it's flattering.