Book Review | Troublemakers by Catherine Barter

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to my book review of Troublemakers by Catherine Barter! I am so excited to share my thoughts on this fantastic book and I hope that some of you will want to pick it up too!

Synopsis:

Fifteen-year-old Alena never really knew her political activist mother, who died when she was a baby. She has grown up with her older half-brother Danny and his boyfriend Nick in the east end of London. Now the area is threatened by a bomber who has been leaving explosive devices in supermarkets. It is only a matter of time before a bomb goes off.

Against this increasingly fearful backdrop, Alena seeks to discover more about her past, while Danny takes a job working for a controversial politician. As her family life implodes, and the threat to Londoners mounts, Alena starts getting into trouble. Then she does something truly rebellious.

My Review:

Firstly, I was SO ATTACHED to these characters and their world. I felt so close to Alena, Danny and Nick and I was truly inside their world. They are all so well written and just the loveliest, but perfectly flawed characters. They all felt so real to me because of this and I really wish they were!

The setting was also incredible; I could picture the coffee shop perfectly, and this book just made me want to find THE PERFECT little coffee shop. It was the most immersive book: I was truly IN the novel.

Something I really appreciated was how the themes were woven into the plot and didn't feel forced or fake. There was a real narrative of what happens behind closed doors in the political world, which after the last year of UK politics felt very relevant! I also loved the themes of loss, family secrets and street violence which were approached in such a sensitive and realistic way. 

I did however feel that Alena's character could have been developed a little further, and that her character traits, although often well defined, didn't always align with her actions in my opinion, and especially her friendships. I found her friendship with Ollie to be slightly fake and I didn't feel like her attitude towards him was in line with her attitude towards the other characters in the novel.

The pacing was SPOT ON, I was absolutely never bored and enjoyed every delicious second of this novel. There was such an incredible resolution and it really feels like I went on a journey with the characters, which is always how I want to feel at the end of a book.

The representation of a different family was just so beautiful and so so needed. We often see LGBTQ relationships, especially male-male ones in YA romances, but I think that seeing two men looking after one of their sisters and other more adulthood LGBTQ stories are a real gap in the YA LGBTQ market. 

Overall, this was a fantastic YA read, and I highly recommend. It's so fun, and yet so impactful, especially when approaching topics of grief and family.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this post, and I truly hope you are all well. Feel free to drop me a comment letting me know what you're reading at the moment, or if you've read this one. See you next time.

Have you read this book? Do you want to? What are you currently reading?

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p.s. casual magic of the day:

(If you are new here and have no idea what I'm on about, click here to find out more)

I saw my very first daffodil this afternoon on a walk with my family. It seems so early which makes me a little sad, but daffodils do promise a sort of hope, and form such an important part of spring for me.