Conviction
Ratings17
Average rating3.5
This is my 2nd novel (1st being Such a Fun Age) I acquired from Reese's Book Club and I enjoyed both.
Great characters and very exciting. I like mysteries but not so much suspense & thrillers but I did enjoy this one! David N.
Book-club read [UoG]: definitely wouldn't have picked this one up off my own back. The cover is the epitome of a “holiday” book, the ones offered in a train station or airport, all bright colours and beaches and promises of exciting and mysterious travels. I much prefer darker, gothic covers: skulls, ravens, skeletons and dying blooms. This one also had a “Reece's book club” sticker on the front which would usually have me running in the opposite direction - I'm not a fan of celebrity endorsement.
But I was pleasantly surprised, the writing was engaging. The protagonist was interesting, and flawed - I like flawed! Mina didn't shy away from violence and darkness. I didn't expect the twist (it was so subtly done I actually had to re-read the last few pages just to set it straight in my head).
The only thing I didn't like was the large sections of italics, I find them quite difficult to read. I understand that they were there to differentiate between the podcast and the rest of the book but I feel this could have been done in a different way. Perhaps a different font, “inverted commas”, - prefacing each paragraph with a hyphen. Anyway, it's done now so it doesn't really matter. I may even read the next one, so long as it's not full of italics too!
I'm afraid I have to agree with a lot of other reviewers - the first half was so engaging, fun to read, presented a complex central character and a unique secondary tag-along, written in a “voice” that it was impossible not to like. A solid 5 stars. And then around the middle it fell off a cliff, with so many threads popping in and out, a long slog on a train that seemed to come out of nowhere and go nowhere, that I struggled to finish. So an average 4 stars; 5 for a great first half; 3 for a sloggy second half. But Mina's a favorite; I'll read her again.
One Of The Best Final Lines I've Ever Read! The book itself started a bit slow, but by around 15-20% in or so builds to where you just want to finish the book in one sitting. Which is nearly what I did, having started the day at 12% into the book, fought through continually trying to fall asleep from sheer exhaustion, and now sitting here writing this review having finished the tale a couple hours later. Great tale with many lies buried within lies buried within lies, and does a good job of holding off a final reveal until the last few pages. Very much recommended.
The story sits on top of a great premise and starts out relatively well. But, as we move along, the story gets sloppier and sloppier and I found myself rather bored by the end of the book. I was disappointed as I think the very talented author, Denise Mina, May not have taken the time to polish this book as she did with the Garnethill series. I also wish her publisher had taken the time to get a proper copyeditor to fix the many typos, omissions, etc.