Pointless and frustrating
Bewertet mit 1.5 Sternen
16-year-old runaway Linus is drugged and kidnapped on the streets and finds himself alone in an underground structure with six rooms, lavatory, kitchen and a lift. After a while five other people arrive in the lift one by one, all drugged or bound and kidnapped in a similar manner.
The six people try to cope with being imprisoned in this bunker, being at the mercy of the mysterious „Man Upstairs“ and try to think of an escape plan. Why are they here?
What will happen to them?
Going into Kevin Brooks' „The Bunker Diary“ I expected a suspenseful tale of people who must try to get along to find a way to escape their situation, who are either stripped off their humanity or have to discover it, in short: some psychological „intimate play“.
„The bunker diary“ is suspenseful and well-written (one star for this) and I continued reading to see if they escaped and/or my questions were answered: Who kidnapped them and why? Was there a connection between them? What was the purpose of their imprisonment?
These questions are never answered, nothing comes out of this pointless story. It was a very disappointing and depressing ending. Now, I can cope with unhappy endings and those that leave you speechless for a while (like 1984), when they answer questions and finish loose story threads so you feel this story has come to a close. But this felt so pointless and unfinished, it frustrates me to no end.
To me, it seems like Brooks just wanted to write a horror-and-torture-story for the sake of torture. Why else bring a 9-year-old girl into this? Just awful! (My daughter's nine, too.)
Since everything is told from Linus' POV we don't explore the other characters much. The business people were just flat and nasty, Russell was clever but old and sick, Fred was the hard guy with a soft core and Jenny just a sweet and innocent girl.
I'm still not sure if I should rate this book one or two stars. But I definitely don't recommend it to anyone, can't believe it's a YA book.