I'll be honest, I wasn't sure about this book when I first requested it. I heard about a book that was about a young Muslim falling into ISIS before and it received a lot of criticism for it's negative portrayal of the Islamic faith. I know this book used to have a different name and I was worried that this was it with a new title! Having read it now, I am breathing a sigh of relief that I actually did like it and the message it was promoting, even though there were some other problems with it.

This book switches between three different characters/places: MI5 Agent Kate, Amir & Nasima who are young Muslim twins trying to make friends in a new community after their brother has shamed their family by running to Syria to join ISIS and Majid, the aforementioned brother who is back in London, full of regrets and hoping to atone for his crimes by helping MI5 stop another attack. My favourite chapters were with Majid and the twins, because they displayed a vast amount of research that Gibbons had put into finding out about Muslims, their faith and how ISIS operates. Amir & Nasima's chapters were very sweet and perfectly represented the life of a real Muslim family, that is to say, the life of any NORMAL family. Majid's chapters were tense and reflective, and I think he was the most fully developed character of them all.

Sad to say, Gibbons didn't put a whole lot of effort into Kate or her chapters. I saw no reason to like her, didn't understand why she did the things she did later, and tried to get through her parts as quickly as possible because they almost hit 'boring' for me. I also wasn't a huge fan of Gibbons writing. It was pretty basic, and a little immature at times. If it weren't for the horrific crimes and death being talked about on the pages of the book, I'd almost think I was reading a children's book. Still, there were certainly some moments that give great pause for thought and I liked the doses of political commentary here and there. A book like this certainly has the potential to spark up debate and offer a different view on things, which is what we need in this day and age!

For the past couple of years, I've been really trying to get my hands on some books that my brother can read. He's 16 and he is, as my old English teacher would say, a reluctant reader. I'm always on the hunt for a short book with a fast pace and interesting plot that I can recommend to him. This one intrigued me and so I thought I'd test it out. In hindsight, it definitely wasn't the book for me, but I can understand it's appeal.

As I mentioned, this book was very short and took me only a few hours to read. The language is easy to understand and so is perfect for a younger YA reader (maybe 14-16... but I hate putting age ratings on books).

Although the book does contain 2 timelines with frequent flash forwards and flash backs, it was clearly marked and thus easy to understand. It definitely didn't make the story feel disjointed, but rather padded it out nicely.

This is where everything starts to go downhill, I really didn't like the 3rd person narrative. For me, it just felt a little too impersonal. I don't understand why it was written this way as Gibbons is writing about something he doesn't have first-hand experience of. However, I kind of wish it was a little more Martian-esque, with first-person narrative from Mijad and then third-person sections from Kate and his family.

Although on the surface, this story seems to be quite diverse, focussing on a Muslim family, I wouldn't be in a rush to use it for your diversity bingo. At the end of the day, Gibbons is a teacher with no evidence of first-hand experience. For that reason, to me the book felt obviously fictional, the events (in places) are extremely dramatic and overdone. I think a first-person narrative would have really helped with this, it would have given a greater dimension to the story rather than a war-time thriller.

It's always difficult to write about events that are so fresh in the public mind and that are still affecting so many and dominating the media. There are many people who will not see this book as informative, but rather as propaganda. Personally, I felt there could have been more effort to normalise more of the Muslim characters in the book. In reality, all of the Muslim characters we meet are involved with terrorism in some way. Perhaps, an effort to show the wider Muslim community would have helped with this.

The ending of this book is the one thing that I can honestly say I was pleased with. It was necessary to show that neither party was blameless and that it is not only the search for jihad that has trapped Majid. Bravo!

Overall, I would probably rate this around a 2.75, so I'll round it to a 3. It didn't make me angry or aggravated, like some YA does, but I also didn't find it especially eye opening or informative. I will try to get my brother to read it and hopefully convince him to write a little bit about what he thought.

The Trap comes out tomorrow here in the UK, and if you have your own reluctant reader (be it a child, younger sibling or friend) it might be worth a try!