Page 13 - AUGUST2023

August 2023
NEWFOUNDLAKELIFE.COM
Book of the Month: Crazy House by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet
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terson and Charbonnet did a fantastic job of crafting an epic story so dark and twisty that you quickly lose yourself in this creepy world and even scarier prison. So, believe me when I say this: this book is a perfect quick summer read that will leave you wanting more by the very last page.
By Brittany amalfi
If you’re looking for another quick and entertaining read, Crazy House by James Patter- son and Gabrielle Charbonnet is your next book to pick up! When rebel twin Becca Green- field mysteriously goes miss- ing from her weird little town, her twin sister, Cassie, the one who’s always followed the rules, must do everything she can to find her. But that proves com- plicated when Becca is taken to the Crazy House, a prison for children that no one on the out- side knows about. Crazy House is a dark and brutal place, and no one makes it out alive. But Becca Greenfield has always been one of a kind, and she’s determined to get herself out of that hellhole.
This book kept me engaged the entire time, and I’m talking fly-through-the-pages, edge-of- your-seat type of book. I’m not someone who can read books in just a few days, but I finished this book in one day. And it was during a work day! (Don’t tell my boss). Not only is it an easy read to bring to the beach or the pool, but it is so well written that even though the layered plot line is a huge mystery, it is effortless to follow. Crazy House is also written from multiple points of view, mainly from Becca and Cassie, but a few other charac- ters get their shining moment, too. Reading from Cassie and Becca’s viewpoints really gave me a solid insight into how both of their brains work and how differently. Becca is clearly the wild child who grew up never following the rules, and Cassie is the exact opposite. So, given the outstanding circumstances that Becca is in, Cassie has to start thinking like her sister.
Other than the Crazy House, this story also lays another mys- tery- the world where Becca and Cassie live. It’s interesting because it is a very earth-type setting, yet the way of life is living in specific pods, which seemed to me like towns with very different rules than what the human race is used to. So I was also trying to figure that out while rooting for Cassie to find her sister and Becca to make it through that brutal prison.
The characters of this story
were extremely fleshed out and flawed. I always love it when secondary characters steal the show, and that was definitely the case with these ones. From the prison guard to the love interest to the rag-tag group of friends, they all had something to bring to the story.
The description wasn’t kid- ding when it said that this was a thriller because, with each chapter, I was ready to dive into the next because each chapter ended on a cliffhanger. Pat-
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