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A review by bluefairybug
The Trips by Pat Murray
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
4.0
The cover of this book looks like it should be a story about going off on a holiday somewhere hot. But it's not, it's so much more exciting than that.
I thought this was a really solid story. Mainly told through the memories of Carl, a Brit on death row in America. The pacing was spot on, and the short chapters were perfect.
The language flowed well, and was easy to read, despite the book touching on some difficult subjects. I appreciated the level of description, which felt honest and not too full on.
Carl is an intensely dislikeable character, but that's almost too be expected. After all, you don't usually end up on death row for being nice! That's not to say miscarriages of justice don't happen, and just to be clear, I am not in favour of the death penalty at all. But despite the main character being so utterly horrible, I felt sad at the end of the book. I found it interesting how Carl blamed his mother for so much, whilst almost putting his father up on a pedestal. Despite his Mother having been around for him far more. I didn't really understand why he hated his sister so much, but then that's probably why Carl ended up on death row and I'm not a criminal!
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Much more than I expected based on the subject matter.
I thought this was a really solid story. Mainly told through the memories of Carl, a Brit on death row in America. The pacing was spot on, and the short chapters were perfect.
The language flowed well, and was easy to read, despite the book touching on some difficult subjects. I appreciated the level of description, which felt honest and not too full on.
Carl is an intensely dislikeable character, but that's almost too be expected. After all, you don't usually end up on death row for being nice! That's not to say miscarriages of justice don't happen, and just to be clear, I am not in favour of the death penalty at all. But despite the main character being so utterly horrible, I felt sad at the end of the book. I found it interesting how Carl blamed his mother for so much, whilst almost putting his father up on a pedestal. Despite his Mother having been around for him far more. I didn't really understand why he hated his sister so much, but then that's probably why Carl ended up on death row and I'm not a criminal!
Overall I really enjoyed this book. Much more than I expected based on the subject matter.