Tuesday 19 May 2015

Review: Bomb - Sarah Mussi

Title: Bomb
Author: Sarah Mussi
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
First Publication: May 7th 2015

Genre: Young adult thriller
Source: Netgalley
Synopsis: When Genesis goes on a blind internet date, she just wants to get over her ex-boyfriend Naz. But when Genesis wakes up the morning after the date, she can't remember a thing. To her horror Genesis has become an agent of mass destruction, a walking weapon in the hands of a terrorist cell.

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I received Bomb from Hodder Children's Books in exchange for an honest review.
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Bomb drowned me in tears. My heart ached for these characters. Extremely captivating read. It kept me up all night wanting to finish it.

After waking up in a cellar, Genesis doesn't quite remember what happened to her. But it all comes back to her, mostly in the beginning of the book. Imagine being in Gen's position, though. Strapped to a bomb, waking up alone in a dark unlit room. I would be scared out of my mind and actually, so is Gen herself. The way Gen handles everything throughout this book is so well developed and realistic. I adored Gen's personality. Her emotions felt so real to me. She undergoes some serious character development and I loved her for every single moment of it. Even after she had developed a lot, she still bounced back into her old thought patterns which I thought of as lifelike. Nobody you hold dear can be forgotten within an hour. The characters in this book definitely did not get over their grief in an hour, luckily. They hurt, they bled and they cried. 

There were these Godlike visions that Gen had throughout the different parts of Bomb. She saw these three women at first and then they came to her one by one, all three giving her a riddle to solving her situation. It gave even more of a religious aspect to it, because this is a religion-heavy book. The terrorists all act out of their religion that has been indoctrinated for a long time. All of the members dye their hair in a bright colour, have a tattoo on their wrist and wear these weird clothes. Teenagers have started to dress like them, because they think it is cool. 

The overall theme, centring around this terrorist group called Brightness Brotherhood, really spoke to me. It is based around the whole ISIS ordeal that has been going on for a while now. Brightness Brotherhood bombs places all over the world and I felt so terrified reading this because I know everything could escalate in our own world at any moment. Gen has a little speaker glued into her ear through which Brightness can instruct her. This gives the whole book a thrilling feel because you never know what the next command will be. 

In other reviews, people said they did not like the 'Life is ...' quotes which Gen came up with in almost every chapter. But I loved them. Some of these quotes did not make sense, but the way people think sometimes does not make sense. People think stupid things and it may not have been Sarah's intention to write Gen like that but I do feel it this way. I feel like I got to know Genesis. Stupid parts and all. 

The side characters were lovely as well. Dave stole my heart and I like how nothing particularly romancey happened. Dave is Gen's ex-boyfriend and they obviously still care for eachother. Naz (who is also Gen's ex-boyfriend) was such a mystery to me though and the more the story progressed the more I started to dislike Naz. The way Gen slowly got to know the real Naz made me connect to her on a deeper level, because it felt like something I experienced myself. Gen needing answers suddenly became me needing answers. But at the end of the book, I cannot help but love Naz too. This intense dislike I felt for him transformed with a single scene. 

Lots and lots of plot twists happened in here. Little ones but also really big ones. I never expected this story to tear my heart in a thousand pieces, but it did. I am so happy I clicked on this book on Netgalley. I cannot imagine missing this experience, because that is what it is.

There was something that irked me though, which was that Gen should have been recognised at least once in this book. I am not going to go into details, because it would spoil a part of the book. But nobody recognised her when they should have. She could not have looked so radically different that no one would recognise her everytime she put on a cap or a scarf. 

Sarah's writing style was fast-paced, more poetic than prose at some points. Definitely my kind of thing. She varies between short and long sentences.

And our love was better than the film and . . .
. . . and he loved me so violently he said it felt like all his atoms were shattered into the universe where they were forever orbiting the earth, shouting out my name . . .
And my atoms may be shattered, but I won't be shouting anything. And I'm thinking - so this is what drowning is like. 

 The reason I did not give Bomb five stars is because of the ending. It was a huge WTF for me. The book kind of ends abruptly. You have to make up for yourself what happens next. I do not like this kind of ending, but I did imagine up my own one. Which is kind of a fun blog post idea; writing out my own ending. Noted that down! 

What book could you rave on and on about?

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