Book Review: Silverbirch by Rob Kaay

Overview:

By eating an extremely rare mushroom that has a red lightning bolt image naturally built-in to its black-gilled underbelly, Nudge discovers he can create a tear in the fabric of the night sky that will allow his soul to legally leave Earth and enter Silverbirch.

I was lucky enough to be sent a copy of this book by the author, Rob Kaay, by a giveaway hosted by Jean BookNerd. I am very grateful.

Now let's start with the review:

From the summary, you know this book is weird. Yes WEIRD. Does that mean it's a good book or a bad one?

I must admit, this book was not what I expected it to be. It was very different. I thought this book, judging by its cover and summary, is a young adult book. I was proven wrong. This book is an adult book, so I must warn you, you should be an adult/mature enough to read adult material.

The Story:

Silverbirch is a very unique story. I don't really know what genre to put it in. It is many thing. Mystery/fantasy/afterlife...
Silverbirch is a world, a world like ours. One of a kind. A world adjacent to ours, made up of Silver. It was a very interesting take on the idea of afterlife.

The Characters:

Nudge is our main character. I honestly wasn't fond of him. He was annoying me. Now, that's a new thing, protagonist getting on my nerves. I don't really know how to describe him, but I would say, Mr.I-Wanna-Swear-Whenever-I-Talk.

Hayley, Nudge's love interest. She was an interesting character. I would call her Mrs.I-Am-Fierce-You-Don't-Mess-With-Me.

Dieter is the sort of Indian guy, I thought he's a very vulnerable character. I would call him Mr.I-Wanna-Escape-This-World-I-Can't-Take-It-Any-More.

Finally, we have Chase,Mr.Brains. Chase was the character I really liked. He was very helpful and sacrificing.

The Writing Style:

The writing style in this book reminded me of Darren Shan's The City Trilogy. That was the first explicit adult book I have read. I thought Rob Kaay is pretty good at writing and bringing his story to life. The book kept me reading. As I mentioned earlier, this book is REALLY weird, but its GOOD weird. Near the ending, there were lots of twists and turns.

Overall, this book was really good, I enjoyed it a lot. It had lots of elements combined in one book.