Review: Crusher

Author: Niall Leonard
Edition: Doubleday Proof
Release: September 13th 2012
Series: No, standalone
Notes: Use of mild language
Pages: 329

The day Finn Maguire discovers his father bludgeoned to death in a pool of blood, his dreary life is turned upside down. Prime suspect in the murder, Finn must race against time to clear his name and find out who hated his dad enough to kill him.

Trawling the sordid, brutal London underworld for answers, Finn exposes dark family secrets and faces danger at every turn. But he's about to learn that it's the people you trust who can hit you the hardest. . .

MY REVIEW:

This book has a great concept. A murder mystery? A bad-ass teenager out for vengeance? Pretty enticing, huh? Well as much as I wanted to love this book, in all honesty, it just fell a little short of my expectations.

The main character, Finn is almost like a male version of Grace in Entangled. He's broken and troubled. His mother walked out on him when he was only a young boy, he dropped out of school early and was bullied because he's dyslexic. Overall, I got on fine with him. He had the usual characteristics as a typical boy of his age. The one thing that sort-of threw me with him was his relationship with Zoe. It's not that I didn't like them as characters, they were OK, it was just rather sudden. I just don't really know how I feel about it.

Since this was a thriller I was very excited to see what it was going to be like. Unfortunetly, it wasn't as...thrilling as I would have liked. Don't get me wrong; it was still quite a page-turner. There was just something so gripping about the writing style that wouldn't let me look away. Needless to say I finished reading it pretty fast!

There was also a lot of action incorporated in this novel. I especially liked the 'house' scene. I don't really want to give too much away, but that was definitely where the fighting kicked off. Side note: Finn's a boxer. ;) Now the ending. I just need to mention the ending. It was a little bit too abrupt for my liking. I was left with the wh-what? that's it? feeling that I wasn't quite sure about.

So overall, Crusher, with it's OK characters, not-as-thrilling-as-I-hoped mystery and strangely gripping writing style leaves me with a question mark. What to rate it? I think I'll go for between 2.5 to 3 stars, leaning slightly more towards 3. I still would recommend this to readers who like the sound of it though! It's just a pity I didn't love it as much as I would have liked.


LET'S JUST PRETEND THIS IS 2.75 STARS! ;D
Copy provided by Doubleday, Random House in exchange for an honest review.

Happy Reading,
Rachel xoxo