Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Review (4) 0.4 - Mike Lancaster

Pages: 273
Publisher: Egmont, 2011
Synopsis(from book): 'MY NAME IS KYLE STRAKER
AND I DON'T EXIST ANYMORE'

So begins the story of Kyle Straker,
recorded on old audio tapes.
You might think these are a hoak.
But perhaps they contain the history of
a past world...

If what the tapes say are true,
it means that everything we
think we know is a lie.

And if everything is a lie does
that mean that we are, too?


My Rating:


Review

Plot: The book starts off at a medium pace, and the narrator; Kyle Straker describes his small British town, where everyone knows each other. It's the beginning of the summer, and school just let out. the whole town is preparing for their annual talent show, that happens to be a tradition everyone takes very seriously. Kyle hasn't been in the talent show, since; he embarrassed himself doing a magic act, when he was nine years old. Kyle's friend; (and neighbour, that constantly follows him around)Danny thinks he has a good chance of winning this year. After hypnotizing his own sister Ally, Danny thinks he has mastered the art of hypnosis.

The day of the talent show arrives, and Danny goes up on stage, ready to show the crowd his well practised skills. When no one else chooses to volunteer, Kyle and Lilly (Kyle's best friend's girlfriend) put up their hands. To them at that point, they just thought they were going into a harmless hypnosis act, and saving their friend from embarrassment. Mrs. O'Donnell and Mr. Peterson (two older people from Kyle's neighbourhood) also volunteer, not knowing what they were getting themselves into. The second the four of them were transported into this hypnotic stage; their lives change... forever, and nothing will ever be the same again.


My Thoughts: So this book was very... well, interesting. I can honestly say, I've never read anything like this before. It's completely bizarre, but in a good way. It's published in 2011, very recent, and incredibly easy to relate to. The writing style was a little simplistic. Since it's a British book, it has a lot of different slang that I'm not really used to. For example, when I first started reading this book I thought it was called 'zero point four', but it is actually 'nought point four'. Also, the spelling of some words are different, which took some getting used to. Overall, I thought this was a good read. It's a bit of a weird book, that makes you think, but no doubt, it was entertaining.