Review: Even If We Break by Marieke Nijkamp

 You know shit's about to go down when five teenagers head off to a cabin in the woods for the weekend. The question is: what, and how?

For Finn, Ever, Carter, Liva, and Maddy, disparate in their everyday lives but bound together by their love of LARPing, this weekend represents a chance of redemption and to mend the fractures between them. Ever, creator of the game, is the most emotionally invested due to their bleak short term prospects compared to the rest of the group. Liva, the rich girl in all typical ways except her unlikely love of the game, gifts the use of the cabin for the weekend - it's a perfect setting and truly an escape. Finn, who was attacked a few weeks back due to homophobia, never wanted to come but wanted to do it for Ever. Maddy, a girl with Autism and PTSD from a car accident, is there because she wants to be but it's more effort for her than everyone else. And Carter, obligated to prove himself to his family, sees it as a welcome escape from his burdens. 

However, as we can guess from the genre, things begin to unravel quickly. Liva had already told them about ghost stories from the mountains, involving bloody hands, a music box, and tiny figurines left behind, and these signs soon present themselves along with others. The fire blazes out of control. Doors lock automatically, with no way of unlocking or smashing them. Notes pertaining to everyone's dark secrets present themselves. And, before long, it escalates to murder. 

Members of the group are picked off one by one. Liva, whose character dies in the game, goes missing. Maddy is tempted by her darkest vice. Carter is picked off in the dark by a familiar voice. And then this someone comes for Finn and Ever. 

Marieke Nijkamp pulls no punches in her prose. From page one, things begin to fall apart figuratively and literally within the group. The mountain setting, though typical, is used to good effect. The use of the game is a particularly interesting and clever device as the actions of the game's characters mirror and magnify the tensions between the real life group members. 

The only thing I was left confused by was the reveal. The person responsible makes sense, but their motives seem a bit disproportionate, but perhaps a second read will help me make more sense of it. 

All in all, this is a cracking thriller read with a dash of good old-fashioned fantasy thrown in within the context of the game. 

  

Review: The Interpreter from Java by Alfred Birney

 With the legacy of the British Empire being all encompassing, it's sometimes easy to forget that there were other European countries building empires and committing atrocities in those countries. This novel explores periods during the Second World War and the post-war period in Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies. 

Alan Nolan discovers his father's memoirs about his service during the war and post-war period - and the atrocities he committed. Though his official title was 'interpreter', his role included the interrogation and murder of Indonesian freedom fighters, desirous to throw off Dutch colonial rule after the Japanese were expelled from Indonesia. 

The first half of the novel mainly deals with Alan and his siblings, and the physical and psychological abuse they suffered at the hands of their father, an escapee to Holland from the brutal reprisals of the Indonesians against the Dutch and those who fought with them. They lived under their father's reign of terror until the eldest boys were thirteen, at which point all of the siblings were transferred to a children's home for their own safety. When Alan became an adult, he discovered his father's memoirs and, reading them, he started to see how his monster of a father got created.

This novel is blunt, brutal, and unsparing in its unpacking of the post-war period in Indonesia and the legacy it created on a wider level but, most importantly, in the individuals involved. Had Arto, the father, not been part of the service on the side of the Dutch, committing brutal acts, would he have gotten to the point where he was so plagued with his deeds that he became abusive towards his own children? How much of his abuse was from him and how much was because of his clear PTSD, not just from the war and after but from the abuse he himself endured as a child?

This novel is searing and brilliantly written but I would advise that if descriptions of abuse are triggering for you, that you steer clear. 

New Review: Son Of Escobar, First Born by Roberto Sendoya Escobar

 Before I write my actual review of this book, for transparency's sake I will explain that I got tagged in a tweet by a journalist for the inews, Etan Smallman, who did an in-depth article countering claims that the author of "Son of Escobar" made. The link, if you're interested, is here: https://inews.co.uk/news/long-reads/pablo-escobar-son-phillip-witcomb-book-friends-claims-doubts-fiction-612281

This book is written by Pablo Escobar's eldest son, Roberto, who writes that he was found in a safe house after a deadly shoot-out. He was adopted by an MI6 agent, Phillip Witcomb, and his wife, who stayed in Colombia. The cover was working with a business called De La Rue, while covertly working with gangs, such as Escobar's, in order to keep track of the rise and fall of smuggling and money-laundering in the country. 

Roberto describes the rise and rise of Pablo Escobar, whose name is recognised worldwide. One of the most notorious drug lords to have ever existed, the book describes how his rise happened partly because of the facilitation of American and British governments, rather than in spite of their intervention. Roberto describes how he never knew he was adopted until the day he was dropped off at boarding school in England, (as a soon-to-be adoptive parent myself, I can tell you that that is categorically one of the worst ways you can tell your child you adopted them), and never knew he was Pablo's son until he was an adult. 

The book reads almost like a blockbuster movie. It's extremely compelling, suspenseful, and nail-biting in places. Whatever the disputes over the claims made in the book, it's definitely worth the read due to its brilliant telling. Maybe just take it with a pinch of salt.