Rating: 4/5
Review:
A good, thought-provoking read
This is a good, engrossing book with some important things
to say.
Set in near-future London,
the story concerns a group of teenagers who, during riots very like those of
2011, randomly kidnap and hold hostage a member of the mayor's staff. It emerges that policies have been in place
for years to induce large numbers of "difficult" children, including
these, to be placed on Ritalin. This was
superseded by the cheaper drug Concentr8 but which has now been withdrawn in
one of the "difficult decisions" made as part of the austerity
programme. The result is rioting and
unrest with the inevitable political manoeuvring, dissembling and
blame-shifting.
Told in multiple first-person narratives, we get the story
of how the kidnap develops from the point of view of the teenagers involved,
the hostage, the mayor, a journalist and a police negotiator. There isn't all that much fast action, but
the story is full of tension and menace and I found much of it pretty gripping. It is really a well-told polemic about the
insidious medicalising of social problems, driven by political and commercial
advantages rather than benefit to "patients". It's an important topic which Sutcliffe
addresses pretty well, but I did have some reservations, too.
The multiple-voice approach is reasonably successful, but
there are too many different voices, some of which add little to the narrative
and not all of which work very well. The
main voice is Troy, who I found
very convincing and compelling as a young man with intelligence but a troubled
background which has denied him much education or opportunity. Other voices were less convincing: although I
am all in favour of merciless parodies of Boris Johnson (who is so thinly
disguised here as to be in plain sight), this is so crude that it rather loses
its impact, I think, and I could have done entirely without most of the other
teenagers and the police negotiatior.
Nonetheless, this is a good, involving read. It is also a book with genuine insight and
substance which I can recommend.
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