The Sham

(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

This is a book I’m truly wavering between three and four stars for. In the end, I’ve given it three stars – for the simple reason that Emily (and Jack, to a certain extent) was the only character who was likable in this book. The other characters were well-written… but really unlikable. Stevie was one I would have liked to see a bit more of. It seemed to me that he got a bit of a raw deal throughout.

This book does pretty much delve into a scene of horror right away and doesn’t actually let up. The four girls in the book who Emily interacts with first are clearly quite despicable individuals. It’s good that they don’t fit neatly into any kind of stereotypes… but at the same time, I couldn’t see anything that was remotely redeeming about them.

I did find myself really quite intrigued by Jack and the mystery that was going on with him. The murder mystery… didn’t actually strike me as realistic. There were a lot of scenes I read and found myself thinking, ‘I’m pretty sure police can’t actually get away with doing that/giving this kind of information out’.

I think I would have liked the relationship between Emily and Jack a bit more if I’d felt it was going somewhere. I felt the author did take the time to develop it, but it didn’t really seem like real love – more of a crush. Which could also have been because of what Jack was going through in the book.

There were some scenes in this book that seemed almost a bit dreamlike, especially towards the end. There wasn’t really much that was unexpected and I was a bit lost about the explanation by the end of the book. I understood it to an extent… but I was confused about why.

I would have liked to see a bit more of Emily’s relationship with Lily, as well as with her mother and Stevie. I was a bit confused about why apparently none of them left the house. I did like the fact that Emily tried to stand up for Charlie at the beginning of the book.

I did notice quite a few errors in the writing, particularly a few instances where present tense was slipped into. The book was still readable, though, and I read it really fast. I probably would read other books by this author in the future.