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Review: Unrest by Michelle Harrison

Unrest by Michelle Harrison
Published by Simon and Schuster

Seventeen-year-old Elliott hasn’t slept properly for months. Not since the accident that nearly killed him. Sometimes he half-wakes, paralysed, while shadowy figures move around him. Other times he is the one moving around, while his body lies asleep on the bed. His doctors say sleep paralysis and out of body experiences are harmless - but to Elliott they’re terrifying.

Convinced that his brush with death has attracted the spirit world, Elliott secures a job at a reputedly haunted museum, determined to discover the truth. There, he meets the enigmatic Ophelia. But, as she and Elliott grow closer, Elliott draws new attention from the dead. One night, during an out of body experience, Elliott returns to bed to find his body gone. Something is occupying it, something dead that wants to live again . . . and it wants Ophelia, too . . . 


***


I really loved unrest. I was completely hooked from the first page and had to keep reading page after page as I needed to know what happened next. It was both creepy and heartfelt and I thoroughly enjoyed every page.

Elliot is a really interesting character. He was in accident which technically left him dead only to be brought back to life by the paramedic team that arrived at the scene. Ever since then sometimes when he goes to sleep he finds himself quite literally drifting out of his body and seeing all manner of ghosts which frighten the life out of him. He is desperate to know whether it is as real as it feels or whether it is just him going crazy and starts work at an living history museum desperate for answers one way or another.

I'm not going to tell you too much more about the book because I don't want to spoil it (especially as I'm writing this a few months before it is actually released) but I will say the following few things.

The writing style in this book is exquisite and really draws you in as a reader. This story takes its time getting to where it wants to go and while sometimes this can drive me loopy in this case the writing style was so good it could have been twice as long and I still would have loved it.

The history geek in me loved the living history museum set up and loved the potential the setting gave to the story with having the characters and events based there.

I loved Ophelia who Elliot meets whilst working at the museum and adored the relationship that is built up between them. I really loved how different she was and how kick-ass she was and that she definitely wasn't one of your typical YA heroine stereotypes.

I really enjoyed the way this story went. Without telling you too much I liked how it all fit together and the explanations given for all the things that were happening and by the end I was left satisfied as a reader about what I had just read. This was particularly brilliant because so many books of late that I've read haven't had that sense of closure at the end leaving you with the feeling that you've only read half a book. I was delighted that this wasn't one of them!

All in all a fantastic read which I really enjoyed.

Comments

I am sold! I really want to read this book now! So much so that I'm breaking my vow this week to not post on any blogs with CAPTCHA or word verification (it just made me cry in frustration during readathon), but Unrest sounds so good, I just had to thank you. :)
It's off now! Yay! So now I will for sure read Unrest. ;)