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A review by katykelly
Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe
4.0
It could be our society. A scary proposition that it's so familiar. The opening scenes I thought were taking place in a London torn apart by the riots a few summers ago.
The fact that young people are rioting after having their ADHD medication taken away was a shock. It's a topic I've pondered - the necessity of over-medicating young people that may not need chemicals to alter their behaviour.
A group of teenagers, on the fringes of these riots, get caught up in the moment and end up kidnapping a worker leaving his government job. Each of them has been taking Concentr8 since childhood, and now it's been taken away. They take their victim to a warehouse and hole up. The police are soon outside trying to negotiate. Then a journalist tries to score a scoop, and the London major (who sounds very familiar...) all try to wade in and make their mark.
But what of the teenagers? We hear different narrators sharing their thoughts, some of them are the teens - Troy is loyal to the gang's leader Blaze. These two are the best characterised, the others blended into one for me. I found the plot a tense one, I wasn't sure what the group would do to their hostage, it felt that escalation was just a few lines away.
As the story went on, the chapter headings were followed by snippets from science magazines, which I eventually realised were not created for the story but are all actual examples of reports on Ritalin and other ADHD drugs, which scarily coincided with the story I was reading.
The story has a point to make about medicating young people, about the causes of their behaviour issues and how we should be dealing with them. I wasn't quite convinced this is a 5-star read, I didn't really take to any of the secondary characters in the warehouse, I didn't really see why Blaze kidnaps the government worker. I think the parts that worked best were those with the journalist and mayor, and Troy/Blaze realising what has been done to them in the childhoods by the adults around them in their Concetr8 prescriptions.
It's a short read, it has a point to make and is something a little different - it's a topic teenagers won't find any other fiction on and is a subject younger generations really should consider.
This is not one for pre-teens, the violence and sexual content together make this inadvisable.
Review of a Netgalley advance copy.
The fact that young people are rioting after having their ADHD medication taken away was a shock. It's a topic I've pondered - the necessity of over-medicating young people that may not need chemicals to alter their behaviour.
A group of teenagers, on the fringes of these riots, get caught up in the moment and end up kidnapping a worker leaving his government job. Each of them has been taking Concentr8 since childhood, and now it's been taken away. They take their victim to a warehouse and hole up. The police are soon outside trying to negotiate. Then a journalist tries to score a scoop, and the London major (who sounds very familiar...) all try to wade in and make their mark.
But what of the teenagers? We hear different narrators sharing their thoughts, some of them are the teens - Troy is loyal to the gang's leader Blaze. These two are the best characterised, the others blended into one for me. I found the plot a tense one, I wasn't sure what the group would do to their hostage, it felt that escalation was just a few lines away.
As the story went on, the chapter headings were followed by snippets from science magazines, which I eventually realised were not created for the story but are all actual examples of reports on Ritalin and other ADHD drugs, which scarily coincided with the story I was reading.
The story has a point to make about medicating young people, about the causes of their behaviour issues and how we should be dealing with them. I wasn't quite convinced this is a 5-star read, I didn't really take to any of the secondary characters in the warehouse, I didn't really see why Blaze kidnaps the government worker. I think the parts that worked best were those with the journalist and mayor, and Troy/Blaze realising what has been done to them in the childhoods by the adults around them in their Concetr8 prescriptions.
It's a short read, it has a point to make and is something a little different - it's a topic teenagers won't find any other fiction on and is a subject younger generations really should consider.
This is not one for pre-teens, the violence and sexual content together make this inadvisable.
Review of a Netgalley advance copy.