Twenty Questions For Gloria by Martyn Bedford
The Blurb On The Back:
Two go missing.
One comes back.
Gloria is tired of her ordinary life. So when a mysterious new boy bent on breaking all the rules strolls into her classroom. Gloria is ready to fall under his spell. By the time she learns the truth about him, Gloria is a long way from home.
15-year-old Gloria knows that she’s dissatisfied with her life but she doesn’t know how unhappy she is until Uman Padeem joins her class. Tall and gangly with shoulder-length black hair, Uman is like no one she’s ever met before. Confident and intelligent but always civil and respectful, he can argue with teachers to make them back down and ditches school without ever getting into trouble. He’s a free spirit who, for some reason, seems interested in Gloria who in turn finds herself increasingly drawn to him. But Uman has secrets and when these start to come out, the two are already on the run …
Martyn Bedford’s third YA novel is a psychological thriller about a disaffected teen and first love that promises a lot but, for me, didn’t really deliver on that promise. The book is structured around the twenty questions that a police officer asks Gloria after she returns home and Bedford skilfully switches between script-style dialogue for the police interview and Gloria’s own strong first person voice. Gloria herself is strongly drawn, alienated and unable to articulate why, I particularly enjoyed the scenes where she describes her relationship with best friend Tierney and how it’s supplanted by her growing attraction to Uman. The problem though lies in Uman himself. The first half of the book works hard to build up a sense of mystery about his background and personality and hints at a dark revelation but when the pay-off comes, it left me seriously underwhelmed (not least because of Gloria’s reaction to it) as it amounts to little more than a he said/she said scenario without any significant risk or fallout. This is a shame because he should be a fascinating character given his education and family background and Bedford conjures a great rapport between him and Gloria. Another missed opportunity is the relationship between Gloria and her parents, who she feels compromised on their dreams and which gets a bit of a soapy resolution while I felt that the overall ending doesn’t really deal with the fall-out from Gloria’s experience, notably the press reaction to what’s happened as Bedford instead opts for an open-style ending that again for me, didn’t convey the danger or oomph that I think it was supposed to. Although this book didn’t quite come together for me, there’s more than enough here for me to want to check out Bedford’s other work.
The Verdict:
Martyn Bedford’s third YA novel is a psychological thriller about a disaffected teen and first love that promises a lot but, for me, didn’t really deliver on that promise. The book is structured around the twenty questions that a police officer asks Gloria after she returns home and Bedford skilfully switches between script-style dialogue for the police interview and Gloria’s own strong first person voice. Gloria herself is strongly drawn, alienated and unable to articulate why, I particularly enjoyed the scenes where she describes her relationship with best friend Tierney and how it’s supplanted by her growing attraction to Uman. The problem though lies in Uman himself. The first half of the book works hard to build up a sense of mystery about his background and personality and hints at a dark revelation but when the pay-off comes, it left me seriously underwhelmed (not least because of Gloria’s reaction to it) as it amounts to little more than a he said/she said scenario without any significant risk or fallout. This is a shame because he should be a fascinating character given his education and family background and Bedford conjures a great rapport between him and Gloria. Another missed opportunity is the relationship between Gloria and her parents, who she feels compromised on their dreams and which gets a bit of a soapy resolution while I felt that the overall ending doesn’t really deal with the fall-out from Gloria’s experience, notably the press reaction to what’s happened as Bedford instead opts for an open-style ending that again for me, didn’t convey the danger or oomph that I think it was supposed to. Although this book didn’t quite come together for me, there’s more than enough here for me to want to check out Bedford’s other work.
TWENTY QUESTIONS FOR GLORIA was released in the United Kingdom on 2nd February 2016. Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.
Two go missing.
One comes back.
Gloria is tired of her ordinary life. So when a mysterious new boy bent on breaking all the rules strolls into her classroom. Gloria is ready to fall under his spell. By the time she learns the truth about him, Gloria is a long way from home.
15-year-old Gloria knows that she’s dissatisfied with her life but she doesn’t know how unhappy she is until Uman Padeem joins her class. Tall and gangly with shoulder-length black hair, Uman is like no one she’s ever met before. Confident and intelligent but always civil and respectful, he can argue with teachers to make them back down and ditches school without ever getting into trouble. He’s a free spirit who, for some reason, seems interested in Gloria who in turn finds herself increasingly drawn to him. But Uman has secrets and when these start to come out, the two are already on the run …
Martyn Bedford’s third YA novel is a psychological thriller about a disaffected teen and first love that promises a lot but, for me, didn’t really deliver on that promise. The book is structured around the twenty questions that a police officer asks Gloria after she returns home and Bedford skilfully switches between script-style dialogue for the police interview and Gloria’s own strong first person voice. Gloria herself is strongly drawn, alienated and unable to articulate why, I particularly enjoyed the scenes where she describes her relationship with best friend Tierney and how it’s supplanted by her growing attraction to Uman. The problem though lies in Uman himself. The first half of the book works hard to build up a sense of mystery about his background and personality and hints at a dark revelation but when the pay-off comes, it left me seriously underwhelmed (not least because of Gloria’s reaction to it) as it amounts to little more than a he said/she said scenario without any significant risk or fallout. This is a shame because he should be a fascinating character given his education and family background and Bedford conjures a great rapport between him and Gloria. Another missed opportunity is the relationship between Gloria and her parents, who she feels compromised on their dreams and which gets a bit of a soapy resolution while I felt that the overall ending doesn’t really deal with the fall-out from Gloria’s experience, notably the press reaction to what’s happened as Bedford instead opts for an open-style ending that again for me, didn’t convey the danger or oomph that I think it was supposed to. Although this book didn’t quite come together for me, there’s more than enough here for me to want to check out Bedford’s other work.
The Verdict:
Martyn Bedford’s third YA novel is a psychological thriller about a disaffected teen and first love that promises a lot but, for me, didn’t really deliver on that promise. The book is structured around the twenty questions that a police officer asks Gloria after she returns home and Bedford skilfully switches between script-style dialogue for the police interview and Gloria’s own strong first person voice. Gloria herself is strongly drawn, alienated and unable to articulate why, I particularly enjoyed the scenes where she describes her relationship with best friend Tierney and how it’s supplanted by her growing attraction to Uman. The problem though lies in Uman himself. The first half of the book works hard to build up a sense of mystery about his background and personality and hints at a dark revelation but when the pay-off comes, it left me seriously underwhelmed (not least because of Gloria’s reaction to it) as it amounts to little more than a he said/she said scenario without any significant risk or fallout. This is a shame because he should be a fascinating character given his education and family background and Bedford conjures a great rapport between him and Gloria. Another missed opportunity is the relationship between Gloria and her parents, who she feels compromised on their dreams and which gets a bit of a soapy resolution while I felt that the overall ending doesn’t really deal with the fall-out from Gloria’s experience, notably the press reaction to what’s happened as Bedford instead opts for an open-style ending that again for me, didn’t convey the danger or oomph that I think it was supposed to. Although this book didn’t quite come together for me, there’s more than enough here for me to want to check out Bedford’s other work.
TWENTY QUESTIONS FOR GLORIA was released in the United Kingdom on 2nd February 2016. Thanks to Walker Books for the review copy of this book.