Hey, hope you are all having a good week, it’s Zoe here today and I am going to be reviewing a book I read recently called Twenty Questions for Gloria by Martyn Bedford.
Gloria is tired of her ordinary life. She barely recognises the free-spirited girl she used to be
in the unadventurous teenager she has become. So when a mysterious boy bent on breaking the rules strolls into her classroom, Gloria is ready to fall under his spell.
Uman is funny, confident and smart. He does whatever he likes and doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him. The only people for him are the mad ones, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn. He is everything Gloria wishes to be. He can whisk her away from the life she loathes and show her a more daring, more exciting one, in which the only limits are the boundaries of her own boldness.
But Uman in not all he seems and by the time she learns the truth about him, she is a long way from home and everyone wants to know, Where’s Gloria?
When I first picked up this book I had no idea what to expect. I read the blurb but it didn’t really give me good idea of the book so I was intrigued to begin reading it. I knew it was some sort of a mystery book which I hadn’t read in a while so I was quite excited. I found this book really different to a lot of the typical YA books today book, finding the characters really strange and even when I came to the end of the book I was confused as to what I had just read.
Starting with the main character, Gloria, I didn’t really get her deal. To me she seemed a bit selfish, thoughtless and naive, running away at the age of 15 and not really thinking about the consequences. I think she was well developed throughout the story, but I didn’t connect with he as a character at all. I did like the way the book was set out as an interview between Gloria and the detective which then went into a narrative style as she began talking about her experiences. I thought it was good getting to see her speak about her experiences after they had all happened, as us as the audience were left with plenty of questions wanting to know what had happened to her when she was away.
Uman was the other main character, a boy with a troubled past after what his father had done. Uman is originally perceived as a kidnapper and manipulator by Gloria’s mum and the police, and although Gloria constantly stated that it was both of their ideas to run away, I found Uman quite pretentious, egotistic and even demanding. Throughout the story I wasn’t able to connect with either of the main characters and this made it hard for me to like the book. I thought both of them were really selfish to do what they did with out thinking about Gloria’s family and what they were going through.
“I’m a miracle. And they can not believe I will not disappear again. It’s funny, I never considered it disappeared. How do you disappear from yourself?”
Although I didn’t love the characters, I still found that the storyline caught my attention and at some parts I was really eager to find out what had happened and why Gloria was back. I did become quite engaged with their adventures and what they were going to do next, so although I didn’t like reading about them, I found the plot compelling. The second half of the book also seemed dragged on a bit and I was left waiting for the mystery or thrill. Even when the book was getting interesting I found myself dissatisfied with what was happening. I do think the ending was bitter-sweet and captured some of the beautiful parts of this book which was nice, so I was happy with the way it ended.
Overall, this book was really unique and different to anything I have read before in YA fiction. Although I wasn’t able to connect with the characters, I have read many reviews which loved Gloria and Uman, so if you love mystery/drama YA novels, have a go with this one and hopefully you enjoy it. If any of you have read this, make sure to tell me your thoughts on it in the comments below. Thank you so much for reading, we will be back with another post soon. x
Star Rating: 2.5/5
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