Month: November 2012

Daily Ponder: Where do you Read?

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cats are reading a book

cats reading (Photo credit: Catunes)

I try to read everyday, but finding time can be tough. As a result I’ll read whenever, and wherever, I can grab a few minutes.

At the moment, my reading places include:

  • In bed
  • Curled up on the sofa in front of the log fire
  • On the train (and tube) in London
  • On the station platform (waiting for delayed train)
  • In the car, sat at the level-crossing (the barriers always close for at least five minutes!)
  • In the bath (difficult with a Kindle!)
  • Waiting at supermarket checkout

What about you?

Where and when do you find your time to read?

Review: Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

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Book Cover

An utterly gripping read from the first page to the very last

“When Archway Young Offenders Institution is closed down a notebook is found in one of the rooms. Its pages reveal the dark and troubled mind of Emily Koll, Archway’s most notorious inmate.”

Heart-Shaped Bruise is the debut novel of Tanya Byrne, and it’s a real corker. This young adult/adult cross-over story, is emotive, compelling and highly absorbing.

It tells the story of eighteen-year-old Emily Koll, through the diary she kept while at Archway Young Offenders Institution. As well as chronicling daily life as an inmate, Emily confides in the pages the things she can’t bring herself to tell the Institution’s therapist, Doctor Gilyard. Emily tells her story in her own style – cynical, witty and with more than a touch of dark humour. She might not be ‘likable’ to all, but she’s certainly very ‘readable’.

It’s hard to write a review without giving the story away, but I’m not going to tell you what Emily did or why she did it – it’s just too big a spoiler. What I will say is that as Doctor Gilyard tries to persuade the fragile-tough Emily to tell her why she did what she did, Emily’s barriers gradually crumple and she confides in the diary all the things that happened to tear her family apart and how she decided to take her revenge on the person she saw as responsible.

It’s a story of opposites – it’s sad yet funny, tense yet light-hearted, chilling yet warming, fragile yet powerful. Through Emily’s story of love, grief, hate and revenge, you go through the full rollercoaster of emotions. And it’s beautifully written, with a strong narrative voice that pulls you into Emily’s world, immerses you in her reality, and pulls a hard emotional punch at the end.

This is one of the most remarkable and unique books I’ve read this year. Whether you’re an adult or a young adult, this is a fantastic story that I think all fans of psychological thrillers will enjoy.

Highly recommended.

 

Heart-Shaped Bruise is published by Headline and is available now.