What We're Reading
BOOK
Child's Play by Kia Abdullah
Revenge Ink, £7.99
1/5
IN A NUTSHELL
East London author's second novel centres on paedophiles and a secret organisation set up to catch them.
REVIEW
William Golding redrafted his 1954 novel Lord of the Flies several times after advice from his editor at Faber & Faber.
Golding, at the time a schoolteacher in Salisbury, rewrote much of the novel, toning down certain characters and changing the title.
Lord of the Flies became a classic, selling 20million copies in the UK alone, while the author went on to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
It shows what can happen when an aspiring author joins forces with a knowledgeable and enlightened editor.
Kia Abdullah clearly did not have a similar benefit when she submitted her manuscript for Child's Play, a "sharp and edgy thriller of daring provocativeness" about a pretty young woman who joins an undercover Government organisation whose purpose is to catch paedophiles using a "mysterious new law".
Rather than try and create a tightly-plotted novel peopled with realistic characters, Abdullah has chosen the Hollywood option. The main protagonists are all unbelievably good looking and the action rattles along with all the incredibility of a Dan Brown book.
The central premise - using adults who look like underage girls to catch paedophiles - beggars belief. The sex scenes are the stuff of juvenile imagination, while the dialogue reeks of trash TV.
Anyone tempted to invest their hard-earned in buying it will, should they make it all the way through, be left wondering how they had managed to waste their money and their time on such a poor effort.
Although they might be compensated by its unintentional comedy value.
This really is a bad, bad book. Avoid it.
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4 Comments
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Read The Wharf E-Edition
I wonder if this scathing review has anything to do with the fact that Kia writes a weekly column for The Wharf's rival freepaper, The Docklands?
I can't comment on the novel since I haven't read it yet, but Kia does write well, as she proves every week in the paper. Her style is quite informal and I don't know if that's affected the novel but I always look forward to reading her.
This is one of the most scathing reviews I have read in a long time - indicative of the hidden agenda Amele above points out?
In any case, if the novel is actually like the three things you compare it to (Hollywood, Dan Brown and trash TV) then surely it has the makings of a bestseller?
I agree with Amele and Jason's comments above. This review has an ulterior motive. The book is well written, I read it cover to cover in less than a day and it was engaging and thought-provoking - which are 2 high quality facets in a good book. Whilst not the usual genre of book I read, I'm glad I bought it as it gives a fascinating insight (albeit dramatic) into the struggle people can have with the darker side of their mind. Well worth a read and nothing like trash TV in my view. The pace of a Dan Brown novel is about the only thing I'd agree with in the review. Shame on Simon Hayes for such a biased/political stance in an attempt to destroy a young writer because she happens to write for a competitor paper!
Heh, might have been a good idea to use a screen name that looked less like Kia Abdullah if you wanted to remain anonymous, Kaiden.