A potential to turn into a 5 star if I continue to think about this book as much as I think I will. This made me stop and think. Massively. I loved this book and all the twists and turns. It wasn’t a book I expected to enjoy, but I really did. Picked this up by accident as I had just read “The Last Passenger” also by Will Dean. Another fantastic novel by him which gripped me. 

I have never been so invested in a character. I wanted throw the book across the room and but also to finish it as quickly as  possible.

Brutal, raw, dark and absolutely engrossing.

When I started this book I honestly rolled my eyes and thought, not this again. I've read and listened to a lot of books with very similar themes in recent months and was fearful of being bored by essentially the same story. Well, after the first few pages not alone did I forget about being bored, I also forgot to breathe.

From the first few words, I was immediately consumed by Jane's fear, desperation and hunger. The tension within this book is immediate, it throws you straight into the action and somehow that tension continues to build right until those final scenes. 

Dean portrays the warped relationship between Jane and Lenn (her captor) so delicately and so forcefully all at once. He shows just how much control Lenn has and exerts over her while simultaneously conveying an element of care given to her. 

As the story develops Jane is faced with many almost impossible decisions. Dean gracefully negotiates these moral dilemmas and really makes you question, what would you do in these scenarios? It's not always as simple as right or wrong.

Dean's style is suitably claustrophobic, chilling and unrelenting. He has created a world so vivid and menacing. Once you read those first few lines he instantaneously picks you up, plunges you head first into that world and does not let you come up for air until the very last page. 

Already one of my top reads for 2021.