Monday 24 August 2015

It'll Make You Lose Your Concentr8ion (Because it's boring, not because of the ADHD)





Concentr8
Author:
Publication Date: August 27th 2015
Publisher: Bloomsbury Children's
 ~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~

In a future London, Concentr8 is a prescription drug intended to help kids with ADD. Soon every troubled teen is on it. It makes sense, doesn't it? Keep the undesirable elements in line. Keep people like us safe from people like them. What's good for society is good for everyone. Troy, Femi, Lee, Karen and Blaze have been taking Concentr8 as long as they can remember. They're not exactly a gang, but Blaze is their leader, and Troy has always been his quiet, watchful sidekick - the only one Blaze really trusts. They're not looking for trouble, but one hot summer day, when riots break out across the city, they find it. What makes five kids pick a man seemingly at random - a nobody, he works in the housing department, doesn't even have a good phone - hold a knife to his side, take him to a warehouse and chain him to a radiator? They've got a hostage, but don't really know what they want, or why they've done it. And across the course of five tense days, with a journalist, a floppy-haired mayor, a police negotiator, and the sinister face of the pharmaceutical industry, they - and we - begin to understand why ...This is a book about what how we label children. It's about how kids get lost and failed by the system. It's about how politicians manipulate them. Gripping and controversial reading for fans of Malorie Blackman and Patrick Ness




DNF'ing 170 pages in, because I tried, okay? I spent ages getting through the first 100 pages, just hoping it would get better. It didn't. I'm bored out of my mind. Seriously bored. Watching paint dry would be more interesting, I know it sounds harsh, but honestly, I would rather watch paint dry.
 Nothing happens, we're basically reading the same shit over in a different perspective, same thoughts, same do nothing, rinse, repeat, read again. The only interesting parts about Concentr8 is the little titbits at the beginning of each chapter that gives us some information on ADHD, and some of The Journalists perspective. Other than that? No.

Concentr8 is told in multiple perspectives, the teenagers, the hostage, the mayor, and the journalist, you can tell the difference in The Hostage, The Mayor and The Journalists perspective, but once it comes to the characters that kidnapped The Hostage (I seriously can't even remember his name), apart from Karen's perspective, I had a hard time of telling who was who, and the only reason I knew Karen's perspective was Karen's perspective because everything she says is said like a question and? It's? Fucking annoying? Right?

So, what happened within the first 170 pages of Concentr8? Some teenagers kidnap a guy. Keep him in a warehouse (I think, can't even remember that, either) annnnnnnnnnnnnd that's about it.
Concentr8 didn't keep my concentr8ion