I really wanted to like this book and I thoroughly enjoyed the first few chapters, got really intrigued by the story and the domino effect of single life event on further lives of many. Saying that, I found the format too hard to get a hold of me. I usually read as much and as far in the story as it carries me, and with this story, I felt I had to detach myself more often than usual to stop and feel and understand what was said and felt. It's possible that I simply am not used to this author and might feel differently if I picked up this book at another time. The book cover is well suited for the story and depicts the severity of events well. I honestly hope this author continues to write more books like this.

Kill (redacted) tells the story of Michael, a retired headteacher, as he comes to terms with the death of his wife in a terrorist attack. The book follows him on his journey as he prepares to kill the man he believes to be ultimately responsible. I enjoyed this book. The writing was raw and I wholly believed Michael as the still grieving, vengeful husband. The short self expressions leant to a quick read and gave many snapshots of his life before and after his wife's death. Michael, as unlikeable as he was, was captivating. Although Michael was a strong lead, he was let down by the supporting characters, none of whom I really felt a connection with. The story also tended to go into Michael's past memories, which I didn't find particularly interesting when pitted against the current day plot. The ending was also very abrupt - a whole novel's worth of build up was tied together in the last twenty or so pages. It seemed very rushed. Those issues aside, it was still a worthwhile read, and I will be looking out for more from this author in the future.

Michael the head teacher of a school, has lost his wife in a terrorist attack on a London underground train. Full of anger and his life now in bits he tries, with the help of his therapist Angela, to come to terms with what has happened. He makes plans for revenge on those who he feels are responsible for the attack and begins to put this plot into action. The book is written in a bit of a mix of styles, including letters and journal entries, the ending was unexpected. In some ways I found, this book, a bit eerie especially with the redacted bits, which gives the book a look of a censored document. I think the author is very clever to be able to imagine what it must be like to suffer in such a way and the book takes the reader on a journey into the mind of a man who is travelling into madness. I reached the end of the book and felt a bit unsure about what I felt about, it may well be that it is just so different to the usual books I read.

It isn't that this is a bad book, nor is it an uninteresting story, something seemed wrong with this somehow? I love how it's formatted- in diary like segments that you work through with Michael, and you do see character growth in him and in some ways I like that we get the information slowly, which shows his unwillingness to move on from his late wife's death and his disinterest in counselling and perhaps how tortured he feels by his self-prescribed guilt. This is good, it's amazing, however I really struggled to delve into this book. I found I didn't truly care that much about Michael, I'm not sure he's meant to be a particularly likable character but one that you have to have empathy and throughout the book see him develop but the first half of this is very sllooowwwww and the second half just doesn't make it up to me and I'm not sure I would recommend it because of that. Although all opinions in this review are my own, thank you to Atlantic Books and Readers First for an advance copy of this book.

I felt I was being schooled whilst reading this! Maybe the author used to be a teacher in a previous life haha! Great little twist near the end, making you feel all kinds of emotions. I found I was sympathising with the main character Michael a lot, going through the stages of grief with him, wanting people to understand where he was coming from, and then the ending blew all that right out of the water! It has been written in the style of a diary entry, however I feel maybe more like discarded notes with memories. Michael flits between the present and the past, building up the characters that played an important part in his future decisions, his behaviour becoming even more erratic/obsessive as the weeks and months pass. At one stage he starts to take blood from himself, pints at a time, and you never really know why he does it. His relationship with his daughter is extremely strained, his dying father makes him feel awkward and his therapist, although at times I think he loathes her, he also knows he needs her to try and make sense of whats going on in his head. A nice read, a little over my head at times with the language used, a little quirky in the sense that there are no numbers on the pages. A bookmark is definitely recommended!!