The Chain by Adrian McKinty | #20BooksOfSummer

Author : Adrian McKinty
Title : The Chain
Pages : 352
Publisher : Orion
Publication date : July 9, 2019

| ABOUT THE BOOK |

You just dropped off your child at the bus stop. A panicked stranger calls your phone. Your child has been kidnapped, and the stranger explains that their child has also been kidnapped, by a completely different stranger.

The only way to get your child back is to kidnap another child within 24 hours. Your child will be released only when the next victim’s parents kidnap yet another child, and most importantly, the stranger explains, if you don’t kidnap a child, or if the next parents don’t kidnap a child, your child will be murdered.

You are now part of The Chain. 

| MY THOUGHTS |

If you’ve not heard mention of this book before, you must be living under a rock. The buzz has been buzzing like a big buzzing thing for ages. Now, I’m often wary of books that are being hyped up like this one has been, because my expectations tend to go where no expectations have gone before. But I also suffer from FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) so I decided to give The Chain a go anyway.

It’s a normal morning. Kylie is waiting at the bus stop for the bus that will take her to school, when suddenly a man in a ski mask approaches her, points a gun at her and kidnaps her in broad daylight. Shortly afterwards, Kylie’s mother, Rachel, receives a phone call from a panicked stranger. The only way Rachel can get her daughter back is to kidnap another child. Rachel is now part of the chain and the chain cannot be broken.

As far as terrifying and chilling premises go, this one is right up there! And yet. The book is split into two parts. Part one is phenomenal. Super tense, it sucked me in from the get-go, wondering what I would do or where to even start. Part two, on the other hand, lost me. I frequently checked to see how many pages I still had left to read and that’s never a good thing. The level of tension dropped quite remarkably, I felt things started to drag somewhat and worse than that, le gasp, I sort of stopped caring.

All in all, I’m feeling rather conflicted and somewhat disappointed. Part of me feels I should have listened to my gut and let this one go, but the other part is glad I read it. If The Chain had stopped before the second half, it would have been a hugely successful read for me. On the other hand, this is movie material right here and I can absolutely see the appeal. From what I’ve seen, I’m in the minority with my opinion so don’t let that sway you. If you do decide to read The Chain, I’d be very interested to know what you make of it.

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Book 12 from my 20 Books of Summer list.