Hello Everyone! I'm getting through these books much faster than I really anticipate to. But I keep getting books that I'm really enjoying which motivates me to take time to read them more. I just bought 3 new books and they should be coming soon so I'll make sure to post them in order from when I do read them. Let's get started in this book review.
Introduce the book:
Eight kids, ages nine to seventeen, awaken to find that almost everything they have ever known has been stolen from them. They were ripped from their beds in the middle of the night and transported to an unfamiliar and unforgiving new world where there are strict rules, and they are punished if they refuse to obey. As the kids grapple with their mysterious new reality, they struggle with disconcerting questions... Where in the world are they? Why were they taken away from their families? Will they ever get to go back home? And the most frightening question of all... Will this be the place where they die?
Let's Talk About The Book:
This book will most likely take you on a ride. It's very unsettling and very vague for the most part. You really feel as though you're experiencing this for yourself and are trying to uncover the pieces in everyone's stories. The title for this book is perfect because much of what is brought up or talked about within the book is always unknown. Everyone's collected fears are unknown, their setting is unknown, their escape is unknown, everything. You really have to situate yourself and really develop the connection to the characters, which for me I felt the connection right off the bat. I think it's crucial in a story like this because the plot of it is vague yes but what carries you throughout most of it is the connection between all the characters.
Favorite Part of The Book:
I really liked getting to know all the characters in a deeper way. They showed their weaknesses and vulnerabilities and their flaws. I felt very empathetic towards each character. But really there's about 4 characters within this story that really get talked about which is Goat, Tiger, Unpleasant and Liam.
Con:
One thing that I personally felt that could've improved was the writing at times. It felt amateur in some ways and some of the connections were missing for me but in many other aspects I felt it made up and got a lot better. The characters really made the story happen so I'm happy that the character development was there because that showed great writing.
Psychology Applied:
So this book has a tie that I can directly bring back to psychology which is abduction! This whole book stems from the kidnapping of multiple children, with varying ages.
I want to leave a scholarly journal here which talks about The Psychological Impact of Kidnapping. I didn't read all of it but it brings up a lot of important aspects with victims of abduction. These are the most extreme forms of psychological stress as well as emotional stress. The impact that a victim has with being kidnapped will carry on for the rest of their lives. They can live with multiple disorders afterwards and will be vary wary to trust anyone later in life. I can't imagine the amount of trauma one can go through with being abducted, not having control of their surroundings and hoping they make it out alive.
I also want to leave this resource which is on Trauma and it explains what trauma is and how one can then cope with trauma. It talks about the aspect of trauma sort of fading over time and it's true the brain does wonders and part of it is to relieve stress so it usually tries its best to shut out memories that can be traumatic, but it may not work for all instances.
Videos that relate:
So this video goes over what Stockholm syndrome is and typically it can be related back to survivors of kidnapping because many tend to try to build a relationship with the person that has captured them.
This video looks into the lives of two survivors, and they get interviewed and talk about their whole journey. I really love this series that Anthony Padilla does, I think his reach is really big and he's bringing a lot of entertaining videos that bring awareness to some really difficult topics.
Annotations:
1st: " I wasn't going to tell everyone here that I have autism. I was just going to tell them the part about naming myself Tiger because of my dog".
- I really liked this quote because it showed a character struggling to really share herself openly, and I think it's good to recognize that most people that have any illnesses, disorders, disabilities, are all like us. They're afraid of opening up and getting judged, humans need connection and I think a part of why Tiger didn't want to disclose that information was because she wanted to connect to everyone as a "normal" girl.
2nd: " But that nots fair--" I start. "Nothing here is going to be fair!" Unpleasant says in too loud a voice.
- I liked this quote because it shared some harsh truth, everything in life isn't as fair as we want it to be but the point of what Unpleasant was trying to make was to just acknowledge that it won't be easy and it won't be fair and they all have to stick together to make it count.
3rd: " Paris will figure out soon enough how worthless I really am"
- I had to quote this because this is one of the main characters in this book, she's very relatable to many people who have read this book. Right here we can see that she has a pretty low self esteem because she's justifying her thoughts of not being good enough and everyone else will eventually see it. I felt like seeing this quote really opened up my eyes to maybe the amount of times I've also felt the same way Unpleasant felt at that moment.
This is the end of my book review! I hope you all enjoyed it, please leave me some feedback on it. I would love to know your thoughts. This was a great book, and it was really easy to read. So if you're looking for a quick book to read I'd recommend this one to anyone. I hope you all stay safe and have a wonderful weekend.
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