The African Equation by Yasmina Khadra

The African Equation by Yasmina Khadra
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Frankfurt MD Kurt Krausmann is devastated by his wife's suicide. Unable to make sense of what happened, Kurt agrees to join his friend Hans on a humanitarian mission to the Comoros. But, sailing down the Red Sea, their boat is boarded by Somali pirates and the men are taken hostage.

The arduous journey to the pirates' desert hideout is only the beginning of Kurt's odyssey. He endures imprisonment and brutality at the hands of captors whose failings are all too human.

As the situation deteriorates, it is fellow prisoner, Bruno, a long-time resident in Africa, who shows Kurt another side to the wounded yet defiant continent he loves.

A giant of francophone writing, Algerian author Yasmina Khadra takes current events as a starting point to explore opposing views and myths of Africa and the West, ultimately delivering a powerful message of friendship, resilience, and redemption.

Way too wordy and self indulgent what could have been
a gripping and insightful book ended up being a platform for superfluous rhetoric that really had no correlation to the situation the characters found themselves in.

All the characters sounded the same; their 'voices' were not individual and therefore made them appear hollow and unrealistic. Khadra choses to make one of the pirates so eloquent and well educated that it is inconceivable that such an apparently educated man would end up as a murderous thug. It just didn't ring true. It felt that the author was projecting his own thoughts and ideologies into his characters which in my opinion just didn't work.

Khandra's language is littered with clichés and overblown views that seemed out of place in what should have been a gritty and powerful novel. A thug who quotes literary giants one minute and beats the hell out of you the next just doesn't work.

The descriptions of the harshness and beauty of Africa come across well but the endless description of every hut, room and its contents just got tedious and unnecessary. It was way too long, skilful editing could have made a great difference to the end product.

I can't say I enjoyed it, I skipped and skim read several pages in an effort to move it on and I struggled to the end. I am sure there are better African authors but this was my first and it will be a long time before I try another. Not for me, sorry only 1 star

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.

Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit

Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit
My rating: 2 of 5 stars


You'd die for your family. But would you kill for them?

Family is everything. So what if yours was being terrorised by a neighbour - a man who doesn't listen to reason, whose actions become more erratic and sinister with each passing day? And those you thought would help - the police, your lawyer - can't help you.

You become afraid to leave your family at home alone. But there's nothing more you can do to protect them.

Is there?

I didn't really gel with this book, perhaps something was lost in translation (German writer); it was so laboured and slow I had trouble remaining connected and found when I put it down I had to re-read some pages to get back into it.

It was so miserable and gloomy and the characters were unexplored and flat that I really didn't care about them or what was happening to them. It appeared to be a good psychological thriller from the blurb but was for me very disappointing and I really felt it was not worth my ploughing through it to the end.

Randolph is a weak man, selfish, quite arrogant and rather dull. His childhood experiences the person he has become and his shortfalls determine who he ends up being. The characters have no real personalities, they are not well developed. The neighbour who is causing all the trouble is not fleshed out enough to make him believable, we know so little about why he does what he does. It just doesn't have any realism and because of this trying to illicit any emotions from the reader is nearly impossible. The writer tells the story through Randolph and it's all his POV so that the reader has no opportunity to 'see' what is happening and form an opinion.

I ended up skim reading and skipped to the end skipping all the self-absorbed (and now boring) rhetoric. Even the ending where the writer put in a small twist was too little too late to save this novel. A very disappointing 2 stars is all I can give this one. I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.

Confessions - Kanae Minato

Confessions by Kanae Minato
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Her pupils killed her daughter. Now, she will have her revenge.
After an engagement that ended in tragedy, all Yuko Moriguchi had to live for was her four-year-old child, Manami. Now, after a heartbreaking accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation. 

But first, she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that will upend everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge. 

Narrated in alternating voices, with twists you'll never see coming,Confessions probes the limits of punishment, despair, and tragic love, culminating in a harrowing confrontation between teacher and student that will place the occupants of an entire school in harm's way. You'll never look at a classroom the same way again.



When I spotted ‘Confessions’ I thought this sounded brilliant. I love a good thriller and being set in/around a school I thought it appealed to me as it sounded a little different. Being just over 200 pages I knew this was going to be a quick read; I didn’t anticipate just how quick of a read this was going to be. All I can say is wow! This book blew me away!

This is the first time I have ever read a Japanese translated book and I was unsure what to expect in relation to the translation; some books that have been translated that I have read; have not been that good. This was practically perfect and I would have struggled to realise it had been translated if it wasn’t mentioned.

A middle school teacher Yuko Moriguchi decides on the last day of term to announce she is retiring and tells her students one of the reasons she has decided to retire is down to the tragic ‘accident’ of the death of her four year old daughter at the school. Moriguchi, however knows it was not an accident and knows exactly who is responsible for the death; and it was a few students in her class.

This book is split into characters perspectives of what has happened during the time of the death and for the few months after. These form the chapters in the book; it makes the chapters rather long and not easy if you wish to stop reading, to visit the bathroom or make a cup of tea.

As I was reading the book I wondered how it was fitting into the ‘thriller’ genre as we knew right from the beginning exactly what had happened to the four year old. Going further through the book I began to understand and how the story was being to develop. It is a very clever story that stayed with me for some time after I had stopped reading. I also did not see the ending coming and I actually gasped out loud. This is the first time I have been completely surprised by a book and it really did shock me.

The story itself is truly horrific and shocking at times; which made the reader want to continue and although at points I didn’t want to continue reading I just could not put the book down. This is a very thought provoking book, it is addictive and will stay with you long after you have finished it.

It has made me want to shout from the streets what a brilliant book this is and encourage others to read it. This was a cracking read; I highly recommend it to anyone who loves psychological thrillers. This book was easily 5* from me and if I could have given it higher I would have, purely for the shock that I did not see coming!

I would like to thank the publisher for sending this in exchange for an honest review.