The Bunker Diary

This is one of those books that will haunt you and make you ponder how you would have acted in the characters places. It's like "Lord of the Flies" except possibly worse. It's unfathomably dark and will keep teens (and adults on the edge of their seats.

Sixteen year old Linus wakes up alone, cold, and hungry in an abandoned bunker. There's an empty kitchen, dining room, bathroom, six bedrooms, and an elevator. How will he survive? Can he escape? Will he go mad? As the days turn into weeks, more people find themselves drugged and awakening in the nightmarish bunker. There's a nine year old girl, a junkie, a young career woman, a business man, and an old gay man. Can they work together or will the bunker slowly drive them all insane? What show more is the point, why are they there?

This is one of those books that I literally yelled out a bunch of expletives when I got to the end. It's maddening. A great read, impossible to put down, that will make readers really think. show less

Since Kevin Brooks is one of my all-time-favorite YA writers and this book was a 2014 Carnegie Medal winner, I borrowed it from my hometown library. It's hard to put down, and you stick with it because you want Linus, a runaway street teen, to escape his situation. Kidnapped and held hostage in a below- the- ground bunker, he writes a diary to save his sanity. Eventually, he's joined by others, and they're all under the complete power of their captor. You root for them to escape (and Linus does try) but it seems completely hopeless. It's such an oppressive predicament that I had to pull away from it just to get a sense of what insight reading on could give me. Yet, after a few hours, I did go back to it. I won't be a spoiler, but will show more just say maybe its meaning is to show that sometimes those under the absolute power of evil, like hostage and holocaust victims, and while in the face of such overwhelming adversity, can still remain good people. Though I'll not forget THE BUNKER DIARY, Kevin Brooks' LUCAS, BLACK RABBIT SUMMER, & CANDY, in my opinion, still top this book. show less

I'm quite conflicted about this book. It is hard to put down (I read it in a day), it's really tense, it has well drawn characters, it's a powerful book. But it also feels like a thought experiment rather than a proper story, where the lack of a coherent context can be a bit frustrating. Comments which seem likely to be leading somewhere are never picked up or explained. I felt a bit cross when I finished it - partly because of the unremitting bleakness, but also because I felt like too little was explained.

Thought I would have a nice relaxing time reading on a Sunday night....and then I chose this book! This had me reading until the early hours as I just couldn't stop. You would think that a book with this kind of plot would be kind of boring and uneventful but the simple interactions between the characters was intriguing enough without the series of questions that go round in your head and the twists of plot - trying to read something into the whys? hows? what ifs? etc etc.
Overall, I have left this book with a shiver up my spine and a not very nice paranoia but I haven't been this thrilled by a book in quite a while...think this book would make a very good horror/thriller film

Thought I would have a nice relaxing time reading on a Sunday night....and then I chose this book! This had me reading until the early hours as I just couldn't stop. You would think that a book with this kind of plot would be kind of boring and uneventful but the simple interactions between the characters was intriguing enough without the series of questions that go round in your head and the twists of plot - trying to read something into the whys? hows? what ifs? etc etc.
Overall, I have left this book with a shiver up my spine and a not very nice paranoia but I haven't been this thrilled by a book in quite a while...think this book would make a very good horror/thriller film

Thought I would have a nice relaxing time reading on a Sunday night....and then I chose this book! This had me reading until the early hours as I just couldn't stop. You would think that a book with this kind of plot would be kind of boring and uneventful but the simple interactions between the characters was intriguing enough without the series of questions that go round in your head and the twists of plot - trying to read something into the whys? hows? what ifs? etc etc.
Overall, I have left this book with a shiver up my spine and a not very nice paranoia but I haven't been this thrilled by a book in quite a while...think this book would make a very good horror/thriller film

Wow what... do I even say about this book. First of all, I'd hesitate to categorize this as YA as it is extremely dark. I think this book is something that might suit a discussion forum quite well, if your book group is interesting in asking more extrapolated, theoretical questions rather than actually discussing what is in the book. It brings up a lot of interesting points (e.g. how we create meaning, whether seeing logic in a set of actions outside of your control matters, what it means to try and live by your principals when it may hurt you to do so). However, these same ideas could be brought up in a much, much less brutal way. I personally will never reread this book and felt very jarred by it, especially the ending. If you like show more thrillers, dark psychological torture, etc. you might enjoy it. In some ways, it reminded me of the last 1/3 of Dan Chaon's "Ill Will," which I did like quite a lot, but this didn't have anything experimental or driving about the text. Just bad thing after bad thing. show less