Cracks- New Book review!

Title: Cracks

Author: Caroline Green

ISBN: 978-1-84812-168-3

Price: £6.99

Cal lives a fairly normal if, unhappy teenage life. He lives with his mum and his unbearable new Stepfather Des and his son Ryan aka Pigface, goes to school with his best friend Amid and loves to impress the art teacher Miss Lovett with his paintings. This is his life, until the cracks start to appear. His world starts to change and transforms from ordinary into a nightmare as cracks appear on tables walls and the sky around him and he finds himself trapped in Riley Hall, the local young offender’s institution where he finds himself face to face with a boy who looks just like him. He knows he has been here before and that something terrible happened.

                This is when Cal wakes up in hospital in the year 2023 and is informed that an accident lead to another boys brain tissue being transferred to his brain in order to save his life and since then he has been in a coma. Trapped in a whirl of confusion, Cal no longer knows what to believe and doesn’t trust the doctors who say he has no family that they know of and keep him locked in his room under close surveillance.  He also refuses to believe that the life he has been living was someone else’s, a transmission of memory inside his head because he knows he himself has lived at Brinkley cross and is determined to find Amid and his mother, even Des in order to regain normality.

                He manages to escape from hospital, but soon discovers that the world in 2023 is very different. Constant suspicion of terrorist attacks has lead to heavy security everywhere and constant police interrogations as well as recurring ‘plaster bomb’ attacks. The regime is now in charge and they are determined that no one will trust anyone else in case they lose control. Cal meets Kyla and Jax who take him to a modern Fagin’s den full of runaway youths who steal for their keep. Among these new friend Cal finally begins to feel like he belongs again , however his hospital ant him back and he must run leaving his friends behind for their own safety. Can Cal ever find out who he really is and achieve a normal life, or will he be returned to the hospital and hooked up to a machine once again, forced to live the rest of his life through someone else’s memories.

                Incredibly exciting and action packed, Cracks is the new Hunger Games with a terrifying twist. Imagine waking up to discover your whole life is a lie? Everyone wonders at certain points whether our lives are computer games, controlled by greater powers and our world meaningless- this book takes it one step further by describing a boy whose entire life is lived through his mind and monitored by scientists. The world created in the future is a similar prediction to George Orwell’s 1984, and just as terrifying, yet with the hope of friendship love and family still remaining. Its an excellent novel whether you’re a sci-fan or not and will really get you thinking- beware; life can seem so normal, until the cracks start to appear.

7/10