This book sucks.

I was just browsing through my local bookshop when suddenly, a wild book appears! The book is called Tape by Steven Camden and it looked very promising! I have a rigorous system when it comes to choosing books. Here is the brief version:

1. Look at the title and front cover.
2. Put the book back on the shelf.
3. Pick the book up again.
4. Read the blurb.
5. Put the book back.
6. Pick the book up again.
7. Read the first sentence of the first page.
8. Carry the book around the shop for a while.
9. Put the book back.
10. Pick the book up again and go pay for it.

And this book passed this system with flying colours! The book even had reviews on the cover saying it was incredible, an amazing debut etc. Everything is great, right? Right?!

*WARNING: SPOILERS*

---

The main character, Ameliah, is a bit of a wet blanket. She seems to be just a boring, generic, teenage girl. But wait, her parents are both dead! That means she’s relatable, yes? Well actually it hardly even mentions the death of her parents, and the dad just isn’t around until the last chapter where you find out he died of cancer. Although throughout the book there are weird random pages of italics which we later find out has some vague connection to the death of her dad.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention, the tapes that Ameliah owns allows her to talk to the past version of her dad. The reason I almost forgot this is because it is only brought up three times throughout the book. So let’s just get this straight. There’s a magical tape that allows you to talk to the teenage boy version of your dead dad, and that’s not the main focus of the book?!

Her nan has so many male friends, I’m starting to think that she may not be as innocent as you think! Seriously, Richard, Joe, etc. etc. I can’t get it all straight in my head. It’s so confusing! Plus the nan ditched her date and left him standing on her doorstep with a bunch of flowers, for no particular reason? Not cool, nan.

Main character meets a cute guy, they end up exchanging numbers and making the popular girl jealous (like every movie, ever!). But then nothing happens! They don’t ever talk or see each other again. Why did you get my hopes up, Steven, why?!

Joe, one of the random dudes Ameliah’s nan hangs around with, turns out to be Amelia’s dad’s step-brother. Confused yet? Yeah, me too. Even though Amelia’s dad doesn’t even like his step-brother, he asked the step-brother to look after his little girl after he’s dead. Right. So the dad asked a man he doesn’t like to look after his daughter, when she has a perfectly good nan who already looks after her?

The layout in this book is infuriating.

-I’m your daughter.

-Whaaat? No way, I’m like 15 you can’t be my daughter

-Nah, it’s me.

Do you see how frustrating this is?! No speech marks, no “said Ameliah” so I ended up re-reading conversations so many times just to try and keep track of who said what. Plus, the author sometimes indicates who’s talking (as it switches between the two characters) and sometimes he doesn’t. So I’ll be reading one page, turn to the next and suddenly I’m in a different time period. That’s not confusing at all.

I don’t usually dislike books this much but this one just annoyed me right from the beginning! Have any of you read this? Let me know what you think! And as always if you want to chat to me, just get in touch, and if you have any ideas for my future posts I’d love to hear them.

Thanks for reading!