My god, was this book good. Good? Fabulous, amazing, heartbreaking, spirit warming, scary. Name an emotion, and to be honest this book probably will evoke it. Disgust? Check. Nausea? Check. Sympathy? Check. Awe? Check. Love? Check, check, check.
A quick disclaimer. Kevin Brook's book is called Killing God, yes, but it isn't at all a Christian bashing storyline. Dawn does have an issue with a cult, and she does some things that are quite Christian bashing, such as ruining an illustrated Children's bible. It also hints at a boy being abused by a priest but obviously individual characters do not amount to the entire church. This book remains respectful to all faiths, even if Dawn herself does not. It is also not a fantasy novel. Dawn does not set out, like Lyra in His Dark Materials, to actually kill God. Neither is it a story in which a girl attempts to bring down Christianity via protests and the like. It is a series of mental exercises she does - the novel is very much psychological and about Dawn herself, not so much about God.
Something horrible happened to thirteen year old Dawn Bundy, shortly before her father walked out of their house and never returned. Two years on, the thirteen year old girl that Dawn was once still lives inside her head. She is afraid to come out. To distract herself, in the past Dawn has set herself little challenges, but now she is ready to tackle the biggest one of all.
This year, Dawn Bundy wants to kill God. But how do you kill something that doesn't exist? And even after Dawn has tried so hard to bury the past, to bury the people it happened to - bad things have a nasty habit of resurfacing and her old problems - with new ones joining in for the ride - are returning to haunt her.
Firstly, let's begin with the writing style. Dawn Bundy writes the book from her perspective - and it reads like a fifteen year old girl, who isn't quite right in the head. It's not annoying, and the spelling and grammar is spectacular. But the sentence structure is so realistic. When you read this book, you would find it difficult to make Dawn seem anything less than real. She pulls you right into her head - and draws you into her world. The music she listens to, her relationship and worry for her mother, her dogs. They all become your problem.At first the story is very vague - Dawn refers to things like "the thing" which she "doesn't want to think about" - but it quickly gains momentum. Although we briefly watch as she attempts to kill God, it is also clear to us from the language that her mental challenges are not so satisfying as they once were. It takes two popular, "bad girls" from school - Mel and Taylor - who pull her along as their little dolly whilst they dress her up, feed her alcohol and mess with Dawn's mother's mind.
The nice thing about the characters in this novel is that they are all multi-faceted, and we know that they are - but also, the author does not feel the need to expose all of the facets of each character. We see them as Dawn sees them - and so when she likes them, so do we and vice versa, no matter how arbitrary the assumption Dawn has made about them really is. And with a little digging into the plot, we see things that Dawn has realised unconciously, which we already know.
Mel and Taylor, may have an ulterior, more sinister motive, to dragging Dawn through their hoops - but they are also dredging up things in Dawn's mind that Dawn would like to keep buried.
We learn in a scary way, a slapdash way, a very realistic way about what happened to Dawn - but not only the one event that forced the thirteen year old Dawn to hide, but also all of the smaller events that lead up to it. This also forces into perspective the vague hints that were dropped at the beginning, and makes the whole book a lot more chilling.
Whilst ultimately, this book does not have a lot of action (except for the end, when there is a little), we also do have great struggles, beautiful struggles - all of which are psychological and happen within Dawn's fragile head. Through these, we see great character growth - possibly the most realistic and satisfying arcs I think a character has ever taken, in terms of growth. It is not your average coming of age story, but in another way it is by far the best coming of age story I have ever read.
The best thing about this book is that nothing is polished. Even books set in the real world have a tendency to not read like real life. This book reads like real life and the events - particularly the ending - are so true of real life that it is slightly disconcerting to read.
If you love psychological stories, coming of age stories, or even horror stories, this is probably a great choice for you. The references to rape, alcohol and drugs might make it more suitable to children over the age of about twelve - there are no overt references, and frankly I read it age thirteen (just thirteen) and there was nothing there I didn't already know existed.
Overall I would give the book a 10/10 rating, and would thoroughly recommend you read it. I have yet to find a book like it out there - although if you find one I would love to read it because of how great I though Killing God was.
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