VBT# The Sham - Ellen Allen

 

 

Review: The Sham - Ellen Allen - September 2014

Have you ever read a book that you thought was the weirdest thing ever ? A book that you wanted to continue and couldn't put down as you wanted to see which was the point when you understood the book ? A book that even after you have finished it, you are like WTF just happened here and you are still confused about what you have read ? 

For me , that was the book "The Sham" by Ellen Allen , readers once you start this book you will be in for a confused ride , a journey which will have you going ok, what just happened here and lots of huh, im confused moments. So the book starts with the main girl Emily finding Jack with a dead body and you assume that Jack was her boyfriend and that the dead girl was the girl that stole Jack from Emily and the story has alot of descriptive language. Then it flips back six months earlier and wow , what a chapter . This chapter made me want to scream and throw up at the same time , at one part I just wanted to scream and cry and go Why, isn't anyone stopping them from picking on Charlie , why is she just standing there. This chapter folks, is definitely not one for the faint-hearted and is quite abusive in description - here's an idea -think Ozzy with the Bat incident now change the Ozzy to a ten-year old retarded boy Charlie and the Bat to a Bird. Then we meet Jack and he goes from telling them off to having a seizure and we are like , right that went well. Then the novel goes to Jack being all weird and pointing out signs with the same random word painted on them in red. Then the novel flips to the first girl of the bullying four and she goes missing and eventually turns up dead and this happens to the remaining three over the rest of the novel. Then we have a part where Jack isn't really Jack but some missing guy Matthew who belongs to a guy who looks or is known in the novel as "Piggy". Then Emily whose mum can't leave the house , picks up a newspaper which says she's missing but she's like right, I'm not missing and from then on people I'm sorry a new word appears - this time in blue and then end of story and Jack disappears. 

This book was one confused ride for me and it's very rare that books don't get me and I don't get them. If you are one for the weirdness in YA novels and love that odd thrill of not having a clue of what's going on , then check out "The Sham" by Ellen Allen . However, if you are like me and think "Weird is not for me" and "I love novels that actually make sense and books that I can follow " then do not pick this one up as you will be like OMG what have I done and why did I waste my money on this book.