Review – Outwalkers by Fiona Shaw (2/5 stars)

Reading Level: Middle Grade
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Length: 416 pages
Publisher: David Fickling Books
Release Date: February 26, 2019
ISBN-13: 978-1338277500
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: ARC from Amazon Vine
Rating: 2/5 stars

“The border’s closed, Jake said. No one can get into Scotland, just like no one can cross the Channel . . .This is England and it’s no longer a free country. The Government can track anyone, anywhere, from a chip implanted at birth. But Jake has escaped from his Academy orphanage, and he’s got to get to Scotland with his dog, Jet. When the Outwalkers gang grabs him, they go off-grid while the Government hunts for them. The closer they get to Scotland, the more dangerous it is. Because now, it’s not only their own lives that are at stake . . .”

I got a copy of this book to review through the Amazon Vine program. This is a post-apocalyptic read with a middle grade boy as the lead, it’s set in England.

I read the first 75 pages of this and then set it aside. I just could not get into the story and found the strange punctuation annoying. When people are talking it’s designated by a -, rather than quotations. It makes it really hard to tell who is saying what. This just wasn’t for me.

The story is intense and action-packed but I found the punctuation really distracting. I also could not really engage with the story and the characters. There were a lot of characters introduced very rapidly and the punctuation prevented you from being able to follow who was saying what, so it was hard to engage with them.

Overall while this wasn’t awful, it wasn’t great either. It is an intense action-packed story of survival right from the get-go. However, the strange writing style was frustrating for me and I just couldn’t stay focused on the story.