Les Miserables Book

Gosh. I kept getting books in this series reccommended as "if you like x then try y" suggestions so when I spotted a shelf of them on my trip to Hay on Wye, I treated myself to one. Thank goodness I only bought one. I had problems with this, a lot of problems. There's not a character I liked, the dialogue is flat and wooden and no one acts like a real human being.

Added to that there's the fact that one of the plot points is that the school newspaper is getting sued for publishing a story saying that a girl in the school slept with the entire basketball team, one after the other in their locker room after a game (I think that's pretty much an exact quote) - and the main character is caught up in it. Now why would a character we're meant to like go along with "slut-shaming" like that? And when the character is a psychologist? And that's leaving aside the fact that letting a student newspaper publish a story like that is clearly irresponsible and inappropriate (and legally risky obviously).

It's always a risk coming in to a series part way through, but I've read books where you get enough background to the characters to like them and empathise with them and understand why they're doing what they're doing. This is not one of those books. Perhaps in earlier books in the series, these are wonderful characters - who are engaging and relatable and likeable - but that's not what you get from this as a first time reader.

Still at least I know not to bother with any more.

I hate writing reviews like this.