Payback Review

Title: Payback

Author: Rosemary Hayes

Release Date: 18^th June 2009

Publisher: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

Halima has her whole life to look forward to. Brought up in a Pakistani village and now settled in London with her family, her horizions are widening all the time. She is starting university in London and she has met a Muslim boy she really likes.

And then she discover's her father's plan - to marry her to the son of a distant relation in Pakistan who once did him a favour. Halima is to be the repayment of a debt, and it's payback time.

Halima thinks she will never get the chance to travel to England but when her father decides to take the entire family back to the UK, she is overwhelmed. Although she has to learn to integrate into a new culture, Halima sees this as an opportunity to get a good education. She even finds herself falling for a boy, Mahmood, a Muslim boy so perfect that her parents can’t possibly object to them having a relationship.

However, everything starts to fall apart when Halima finds out her father has already arranged her marriage in Pakistan and there’s nothing she can do about it. Halima takes matters into her own hands with the support of her friend, Kate. But her family will not accept her decision and Halima finds herself in a difficult and dangerous situation.

This book is based on a true story and shows how arranged marriages can occur in the UK. Halima’s sister, Asma, has a happy arranged marriage and so the book is far from critical, exploring the different approaches to arranged marriages.

Halima’s family reveal the difficulties of turning your back on your culture. Halima’s brother suffers rejection from his family, Halima’s mother struggles to integrate into a culture completely different from her own and Halima realises she has other options.

I emotionally engaged with Halima all the way through the story because she is such a believable character struggling to deal with lots of difficult issues.  The majority of the book is written from Halima’s point of view although there are chapters which are written from the point of view of some of the other characters which gives the tale added depth. At times it is distressing because Halima suffers so much and towards the end of the book it is unclear what has happened to her.

Overall, the book deals with a real life story in a sensitive way as well as being engaging and exciting. I was so relieved that the book had a happy ending and felt that Halima and Mahmood deserved it! I really enjoyed the story as well as finding it important to my understanding of different cultures.

5/5 Brilliant story and culturally interesting!

Another Me Review

Title: Another Me

Author: Cathy MacPhail

Release Date: 3rd August 2009

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Fay can’t help thinking it is odd when people start mentioning conversations she knows she hasn’t had, or say they have seen her when she knows she was somewhere else. And then stranger things happen: she hears muffled footsteps behind her keeping time with her own, and sees a flash of fair hair just like hers around the corner. Is she imagining it all?

Fay manages to find explanations for each incident – until one day even her mother is convinced that she has spent the day with Fay . . . when in fact Fay wasn’t there at all. Can this ‘other’ girl really be trying to take over Fay’s life?

Fay is just another teenage girl with typical teen problems; relationships, parents and arguments with class mates. However, Fay has one key issue she is struggling to deal with, someone is pretending to be her. People are insistent that they have seen her and spoken to her when she was somewhere else. Fay is concerned that she is going mad, either that or Monica, her annoying classmate is deliberately impersonating her.  Just as things are looking up for Fay, her parents seem to be getting on better and she has a date with Drew, the class cutie, this is freaking her out. Who is pretending to be her and why? Fay’s behaviour becomes more erratic as supernatural elements surrounding her mistaken identity arise and things become more and more dangerous. But Drew is there to help her make sense of things. For the first time since they were little, Fay thinks she can have an actual friendship with the boy who has grown into the class heart throb. But even with Drew’s help, Fay is going to struggle to overcome the danger she is in.

This novel is intensely creepy and even at the end of the story I was unsure of the outcome. Be prepared to be misled by Fay and her double! There are some really detailed images described within this book such as the appearance of Fay’s double from the fog and these only serve to make things more eerie. Uncanny events such as Fay’s insistence that she is being followed on more than one occasion and the lights going off down the corridor make for a continuously tense atmosphere.

Fay’s character is really well developed and I actually felt her fear as she struggles to deal with the doppelganger that is following her and trying to take over her life. Drew is also a brilliant character and it is nice to see the way their relationship changes throughout the story. The plot development doesn’t just rely on Fay and her double and it is interesting to learn about Fay’s family life and her friendships.  An easy read but with a really strong storyline and a shocker of an ending.

4.5/5 Will leave you haunted!