Recent Reads: The Hit by Melvin Burgess - DNF

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley and Chicken House in exchange for an honest review. This in no way alters my opinion or review.
 
The Hit by Melvin Burgess
Publisher: Chicken House
Publication Date:  February 25,2014

 

Format: ebook

Rating: DNF


Goodreads Synopsis: 

Live the ultimate high. Pay the ultimate price. The shocking return to YA by the author of SMACK.

A new drug is on the street. Everyone's buzzing about it. Take the hit. Live the most intense week of your life. Then die. It's the ultimate high at the ultimate price. Adam thinks it over. He's poor, and doesn't see that changing. Lizzie, his girlfriend, can't make up her mind about sleeping with him, so he can't get laid. His brother Jess is missing. And Manchester is in chaos, controlled by drug dealers and besieged by a group of homegrown terrorists who call themselves the Zealots. Wouldn't one amazing week be better than this endless, penniless misery? After Adam downs one of the Death pills, he's about to find out.

 Review: 
I requested this book via Netgalley a long time ago, over a year ago in fact, and it has taken me this long to finally write about it. I picked this book up almost immediately and couldn't really get into it. Then last month I stumbled upon it on my Kindle and tried to pick it back up. I struggles again and got through about 44% of the book. I just couldn't continue it was taking too long for me to read and I really wasn't enjoying it.

The book is about a kid who hates his life and it just keeps getting crappier - one night he decides to take a drug that will give him the craziest week of his life and then he will die. This sounds like such an interesting premise - what would you do in that week? I wanted to know what Adam decided to do... but what I got was this horny, depressed kid, trying to solve his problems with drugs, sex, violence and then suicide.Even the backstory about the drug itself just fell flat for me.


The writing is done well enough and other readers might enjoy the book but it just wasn't for me; Adam, the main character, doesn't really think about the world after him and his to-do list for his crazy week was off putting and honestly (I felt) nasty.

If you are a fan of drugs, sex and violence in books than this may be up your alley, but not mine.