There's a new drug out on the streets -called Death it offers a week of the most amazing highs, fulfilling your wildest fantasies, followed by - you guessed it - death! There at the concert where rock star Jimmy Earle literally dies on stage, Adam is tempted to follow the same route. His life is going down the pan; he's not good enough to fulfil his dreams of playing football professionally; his brother has died; his girlfriend has dumped him. Why not have one incredible week and end things there?
Turns out though that he might have been a little to quick to write his life off - only now there's nothing he can do about it. There's no known antidote so once you've taken Death, you're going to die.
This sounded like an extremely interesting premise for a novel but the story didn't pan out in the way I'd expected. It was a fun, engaging read and nothing like as serious as I'd anticipated. Adam comes up with a list of all the things he wants to achieve in his last week - but they mainly come down to having a lot of sex and driving fast cars. Other people who've taken the drug decide that with, only a week to live, anything goes - rioting, fighting, even killing. All of this is presented within the framework of a thriller. Adam and his girlfriend get dragged into the world of the gangsters supplying the drug and it's a race against time to see if the heavies or the drug will kill them first. The bad guys are so over the top that for me they fell over into comedy, but I couldn't decide if this was deliberate or not.
Overall I'd say it was a fast-paced action story not really something to get you thinking about the issues raised.
Maryom's review - 4 stars
Publisher - Chicken House
Genre - teen/YA, thriller
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