The Tube Riders - By Chris Ward

One thing that any good book reviewer will tell you is that you never review any book without reading it in its entirety first - however, this was one book that I had to say something about before I even finished reading about it because it made me feel so angry. Needless to say, I did complete the book and have since edited my review to better reflect this.

If I had to place this book in a category, without any hesitation, it would have to be New Adult. Although it starts out simply enough to fit into the Young Adult sector, later on in the book, mature themes come into to and this is a book to avoid if you don’t like to read about murder and rape. Both play a large part in this story.

Personally speaking, I tend to steer clear of futuristic story lines after having read one too many attempts to write one where the author has gone badly wrong – but this one is well worth the time it takes to read it.

I didn’t really like the way that the book centers around an idiotic thing like jumping across train platforms in front of incoming trains and hanging onto the outside of trains because we already do too many daft things around the train tracks as it is without being encouraged to do more – that’s why Network Rail are always running adverts.

I found it to be a nice touch to see that death was included as a result of the activity undertaken by the young adults for no other reason than the fact that it was clear that death was a very real possibility.

One thing I did like is the way that the author really endears his characters to you – though it does make it that little bit harder when they get written out or killed off.

I also liked the idea of England of the future being divided into separate industrial zones and the way that this has opened up the option for the author to be able to pick up on this from a different zone if he wishes to at any point because I'd be interested to see how this would and wouldn't work.

The book is also well-paced and the plot is smooth – which has served to enhance my enjoyment of the book further still.