Friday 31 August 2012

Book Review - The Angel Collector

Title: The Angel Collector
Author: Bali Rai
Publisher: Corgi Childrens
Release Date: 7 Jun 2007
ISBN-13: 978-0552553025

 Synopsis
It’s eight months since Sophie went missing after attending a summer music festival. The police search has led nowhere and Jit, Sophie’s best friend and soulmate, is slowly going crazy not knowing what’s happened to her. He has to DO something. So he begins a search that will take him all over Britain, tracking down the people Sophie met at the festival, and following the clues he finds.

Jit’s search eventually takes him to the remote farmhouse in Scotland that is home to a racist cult. Surely he is close to finding the answers. But then everything falls into place, and the horrific and unimaginable truth comes to light….


My Review
I read 'Rani & Sukh' by this author and really enjoyed, then I saw this one and decided to try it. However it got pushed to the back of my locker at work and forgotten about. I had a tidy up last week and took all the books out and found this. I re-read the synopsis and thought it was definitely not my sort of readbut for some reason I couldn't put it back, I ended up picking it up and putting it down a number of times before i put it in my bag to bring home.
The majority of the book was intriguing and I sort of enjoyed it, I worked out who was responsible for it quite early on but stuck with it, but there were some chapters/bits that made my spine crawl and sort of freaked me out. It is definitely not my usual style and I can't believe I finished it.
The book is narrated mainly by 'Jit' his best friend Sophie disappeared 8 months ago at a music festival, he always had a crush on her and the pair had a pact that they would always find each other again if anything ever pulled them apart, and now Jit is determined to live up to that promise. Jit is a typical teen in fiction for the fact that he is bursting with 'angst' and aggression and the feeling that no-one seems to understand him *eye-roll*, but despite this I know he is trying to do what is right and just get his friend back so although I didn't agree with everything he did, I know he did it for the best. 
Every few chapters there is a break in the story and a chapter is narrated by 'The Angel Collector' - a psychopath who abducts and tortures girls I think with the idea that he is 'redeeming them' to make them his 'Angels'. It was creepy and weird and I shuddered every time I saw the Angel wings indicating his chapters and I started sort of skim reading them.  They were just too creepy for me, I couldn't do it. I really am a wimp. 
On Jit's journey to find Sophie you meet a host of people from both their pasts, Anna & Jenna are party girls but really try their best to help. Then the trail leads you through 'Mickey, David, Simon, Ritter, Corey and a load more' but I didn't ever really find myself confused with who was who, each person is dealt with and clearly defined that I knew what was happening. 
There is also a 'cult' storyline, Everyone believes Sophie was snatched by 'Shining Moon' a crazy guy who leads a cult against coloured people, trying to restore the planet to just white people. It was kind of a sub-plot but to me it didn't really feel necessary other than to be shocking and create a cover for the real culprit.
So I would say in a way I did enjoy the book, but it was just a bit too creepy for me and it made me all paranoid and fidgety. If you like murder mysteries and don't mind 'decapitation' and abuse and other really creepy psychotic acts of abuse then you would probably really enjoy this, but for me it just wasn't my thing and I really wonder what made me want to read this so much, as I kind of wish I hadn't. I so hope I don't get nightmares!
 

 My Rating

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