Tag Archives: pyschological thriller

Jera’s Jamboree review: Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

Heart-shaped Bruise by debut author Tanya Byrne

Hardcover: 336 pages

Publisher: Headline (10 May 2012)

Language English

ISBN-10: 0755393031

ISBN-13: 978-0755393039

They say I’m evil.

The police. The newspapers. The girls from school who sigh on the six o’clock news and say they always knew there was something not quite right about me.

And everyone believes it. Including you.

But you don’t know. You don’t know who I used to be. Who I could have been.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever shake off my mistakes or if I’ll just carry them around with me forever like a bunch of red balloons.

Awaiting trial at Archway Young Offenders Institution, Emily Koll is going to tell her side of the story for the first time.

Heart-Shaped Bruise is a compulsive and moving novel about infamy, identity and how far a person might go to seek revenge.

Heart-Shaped Bruise is written in the form of a journal.  It begins with a letter Emily has written to Juliet – the antagonist that put her where she is.  The letter tells Juliet she’s not sorry, it isn’t an apology.  So from the beginning, the reader feels ambivalent towards Emily’s character.  However, Emily’s reaction to finding a love letter from a previous occupant throws into the mix the knowledge that she’s not unfeeling (although she is unrepentant!)

Emily journals sessions with her therapist and in the beginning she is not very compliant.  As the sessions progress the flashbacks are longer and we walk alongside Emily as the picture builds of the reasons behind everything.  Imagine an 18 year old who doesn’t want for anything in her life and from one incident, her identity and everything she’s believed in is blown wide apart.  With her father in prison, Emily falls into a black hole until a plan forms.  Even though the reader knows what she hopes to achieve, we don’t know until the very end the incident that puts her into the Institution awaiting trial.  We still don’t know the outcome of that incident for sure.  The intrigue of watching this unfold keeps the reader turning the pages.

I have to say I identified with Emily.  Nothing is ever black or white and I love psychology – we certainly get a psychological profile for Emily … It’s quite unusual to be rooting for the perpetrator.  How cleverly this story is crafted!  I’m definitely TEAM EMILY!

Another thing to ponder is the media hype surrounding anything that’s thought to be newsworthy.  We may not mean to but it’s so easy to make a judgement from the words of others…

The writing flows and Emily’s character carries you along the whirlwind path she chose for herself.  The other characters are three-dimensional too – I fell a little in love with one of her peers myself!

A debut novel targeted at the YA/Crossover genre, I will certainly be watching for Tanya Byrne’s next novel.

Buy it and spread the word

I would like to thank Sam Eades at Headline, for providing a copy in exchange in for an honest review.

You can find out more about the author by visiting her blog or tweet with her.

Flip by Martyn Bedford

Flip
Martyn Bedford
Synopsis from Walkers Books:

Ever wake up in someone else’s body?


Fourteen-year-old Alex Gray wakes up one morning to discover he’s not in his own bedroom. More surprising is that he doesn’t recognize his hands, or his legs… When he looks in the mirror he gets the shock of his life! How is it possible that Alex has become another boy – a boy who everyone calls Philip? And how have six whole months passed overnight?
A riveting psychological thriller by a brilliant new voice in children’s books.

For readers aged: 12+
~~~~~~~~~~~
I downloaded this for my Kindle at the beginning of May after browsing in Amazon’s Kindle store.
While there are quite a few movies that deal with ‘body swapping’ I had never read a book with a similar theme and was curious to see how the author would deal with the psychology of a fourteen year old boy (based on the recommended reading age of 12+). Also, this story was obviously not a comedy (as the movies I have watched were)!  I was also drawn to this story having worked with this age group in the education environment (both formally and informally) and my youngest son turning fifteen this year.
From the very beginning the trauma of Alex waking up in Flip’s (Philip’s) body and having to become a part of a family, a life, that he has no conscious knowledge of is traumatic.  I felt Alex’s isolation and bewilderment.  I could understand his reluctance through fear of Googling his name in case he found an article on his ‘body’ dying.  Also totally understandable was the need to visit his real family and his close friend David.
Alex has to learn how to survive in Flip’s life (family, friends, girlfriends, school) building lie after lie.  He is so very different from Flip, not only physically but in the respect he has for other people and in applying his intelligence.  The family dog ‘Beagle’ is the only one showing knowledge he is not Flip with his nipping and growling.  How terrifying!  How can you tell people your soul is not that of Flip’s?  How crazy will people think you are?
We journey with Alex, in Flip’s body, through everyday interactions and finally the knowledge of what has happened and where Flip is.  We see Alex slowly merging into a hybrid of Alex and Flip, sometimes Alex not knowing where he ends and Flip begins. 
I couldn’t guess the ending – couldn’t say for sure what the final resolution was going to be until it happened.  I loved it that some parts of Flip’s life had a future.
Flip is easy to read – the way it is written is brilliant.  I was just on the edge of boredom when off we went in another direction so although there is only one focus in the story, the other issues came along at the right time to hold my interest.  I started reading Flip on Friday and finished it Saturday night (and yes, I did have a life in between reading!).
I found Alex’s story very thought-provoking and it’s prompted me to examine my own life – to look at the minutae of everyday existence – and also how I interact with people!  Aimed at readers aged 12+ ……… I would also recommend it for adults of any age!
Wikipedia has this to say about the Science of body swapping:

While swapping bodies remains fictional as of 2011, scientific research points to the possibility of head transplants, a brain transplant or mind uploading somewhere in the future.
Flip was published by Walker 3 March 2011.
You can find out more about the author on his website.


http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=jersjam-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=1406329894&ref=tf_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr