I found this a rather ominous read. The feeling of despair being kept barely in check pervaded. Not that this is a bad thing as the circumstances were not exactly a giggle a minute.

I was a little let down by an abrupt and slightly cyclical ending but the story was solid and characters made real in my mind.

The book was British in a way very few of these dystopian novels can be, why do people just comply with false constructs and faux authority ? We are the nation that queues for everything that’s why!

The Pharmacist by Rachel Atalla is a fresh and unusual novel.. It is set in the future, in a 'bunker' following a catastrophic event, maybe a nuclear war. It is different to anything I have read before, but it was engaging and intriguing and I really enjoyed it.
The characters (main and supporting) and their relationships are at the heart of the book, and I found them charming and engaging, despite the book's post-apocalyptic setting.
There were a number of unanswered questions at the end and I found myself wanting to know more and wondering what the future holds for those in the bunker. I liked this about it - I don't require a story to wrap up all the loose ends, - I like to be left thinking about the 'what ifs'..
A good debut from an author I will definitely read again.



.

Set in a reality after some unmentioned disaster, the people living in the bunkers (split into two sides) are living in share dorms in meagre rations. It’s all very bleak, but the hope of survival keeps them going.
Central to the story is the pharmacist who dishes out daily doses of drugs and medicines to her fellow inmates.
The leader is an unseen dictator who controls all of the inmates and forces them to carry out his will.

Wolfe is the pharmacist in the Bunker, a refuge for humanity until the world heals. Her stagnant existence changes when the leader starts asking her to do different things, that may jeopardize her life or that of others. With a few unlikely allies, she navigates this powder keg of a situation that she is trapped in. To what lengths will she go to survive?

So personal, like a crude and invasive diary, this book is so blunt and brutal in its truth. Wolfe's unexpected thoughts, especially the seemingly errant ones, soften the sharp edges of the story. Our protagonist is quite observant. She has to be in this situation. There is comfort in the uneventful details of bunker routines, details that guide us to life going on. The plot cultivates in the antithesis of Wolfe's previous indifference, to her starting to care as things get risky. And boy do things get risky.

Undeniably engaging, the author does a great job of amping up the danger organically, and the growing intensity of the protagonist's fear and inevitable desire not to be in the wrong. The villain is utterly despicable. Are Wolfe's actions justifiable? That is a question you will have to answer yourself. The questions she asks herself though, have you contemplating life and all its intricacies.

The absence of quotations is off-putting and frankly a bit exhausting. I really do hope that it is only in the ARC. Surprisingly, mostly begrudgingly I got used to the formatting quirk.

This book is an honest look into human behavior, showing us how inequality, prejudices and violent tendencies can chase us everywhere, even into a bunker of a post-apocalyptic world. But there is always some shred of decency and the ability to hope.

I found the cover of this book quite eye catching and it is what initially brought my attention to the book. I love how the bunker door is a capsule shape that also fit with the title of pharmacist too. The byline is “In The Bunker She Waits” matches well with how most of the residents within the bunker feel. They are waiting, “treading water” or just passing time until they can leave the bunker which was initially a saviour for them yet seems to feel more like a prison for most of them. When I saw this book and read the blurb, I thought that it was going to be a post-apocalyptic event but it is more of a speculative, mystery, suspense type thriller. People having to go underground and live in a bunker is something that I think is quite believable when you look around at the things that are going on around the world, so I did find that aspect interesting. It was a shame that the book didn’t look more at the aspects of how Wolfe and the other bunker inhabitants felt leaving family and friends behind.

In the bunker you are referred to by your surname which is quite impersonal and perhaps institutionalised or militarised way of existing/living. The inhabitants of the bunker are fed vitamin and mineral enriched pureed cold food from a sachet. They sleep in dormitories that have beds/bunks attached to the wall to maximise space. The surroundings are grey, concrete and sound quite depressive. The bunker residents are given jobs relevant to what they did in life prior to the bunker. It seems to be a bleak, grey existence for the majority of those living there. Which we learn later in the book is in a sharp contrast to how the leader, Nathan Douglas, who is referred to as N.D. The leader lives in lush, lavish conditions. Thick carpets, antique furniture, elaborate decorations even by “before/outside” standards.

The main character who I was equally captivated, and yet at times frustrated by was, Wolfe. Sarah Wolfe was a pharmacist for the military and was having an affair with a married man. In fact, it was this married man that got her onto the list to ne included in the list of people to go into the bunker. Wolfe is a pharmacist in the Bunker and her job is to dispense medication to the other people in the bunker and make sure they take it/use it in her presence and record it all. Wolfe is talking to Canavan, the male in the bunk above hers about feeling insecure in her job and he says he will see what he can do to help as he knows someone in the bunker. Wolfe is given an assistant, Leavitt. However, there’s a price for this help, she is now in debt to the leader of the bunker N.D and his increasingly odd quirks and behaviours. When Wolfe visits the leader, he gives her a list of names and he demands she report back to him about them. Wolfe becomes emotionally involved with one of the Doctors and the leader eventually uses this man to blackmail Wolfe into doing his bidding. Wolfe faces some really difficult decisions, ones that those around do not understand, that change her life within the bunker for the worst. Wolfe feels guilty about enjoying her time in the luxury of the leader’s quarters and the benefits she has access to when she visits. Wolfe has to report things back to the leader on the people whose names he has given her which makes her feel like she is breaching their privacy and betraying them in a big way, but what can she do, how can she refuse the bunker leader. Wolfe knows times are changing within the bunker, if people really knew how the leader was living in comparison to their own monotonous, grey existence, there would be even more trouble.

The book is really difficult to describe without going into detail and then giving away too many details and spoiler. I enjoyed reading the book, but it is quite complicated, strange and at times a little weird. It really wasn’t what I thought it was going to be like, the story progression, and ending were not at all what I expected. Don’t let my explanation of the book put you off, but be prepared for it to not be quite what you may be expecting.

This book was really difficult to give a star rating to. I enjoyed it and felt it was more than a 3 star read but yet I felt indecisive about giving it a 4. After a lot of mulling over I decided on a 4 star rating. I did enjoy the book, though I felt like the leader/those that created the bunker were kind of treating it like an experiment. I would have really loved more about the “before they went in the bunker” and/or “those entering the bunker” before they went into the bunker. I also was left feeling that I wanted to know more about the bunker rules, how it was set up and what people were told when they were chosen to enter it. I guess I’m saying this felt like only part of the story, almost as though this was the second book in the story.

Summing up, I enjoyed reading the book, even though its plot didn’t take the route I was initially expecting it to.

The Pharmacist is a claustrophobic and intense journey into an underground bunker protecting what's left of civilisation. Here we meet Wolfe and a cast of characters, all deemed worthy enough to have survived the fallout of the world before and continue to wait until they can leave once again - if they can leave.

Wolfe herself is one of the pharmacists on base, working during the day shift in one half of the bunker. Having no family around her, she solely lives for her work, even if that remains tedious at the best of times. However, this all changes when Wolfe is assaulted by a man, confides in Canavan - her bunk mate and familiar figure - and is summoned before the Leader to be granted a work mate, a young woman called Levitt, to protect her from such events again. As their worlds collide and Wolfe starts to regret ever meeting the Leader, paranoia begins to grow and even the most dutiful people begin to react in the strangest ways.

This story was incredibly tense; the slow build up to disaster had me cautiously turning the page in hopes Wolfe would still be okay. With the unpredictability of the Leader's actions, this slow-moving pace was far more gripping than a fast-paced narrative. While I don't think any of the characters are particularly sympathetic, I still found myself rooting for them to survive this tumultuous experience. The ending was also particularly chilling - what will happen next for them all?

Overall, an enjoyable read that will get you thinking about the human condition and the lengths people go to to survive.

This was an interesting and diverting read with an original plot. The standout feature for me was how well the mundanity of every day life even in a survival bunker amidst a nuclear disaster.
The main character was nuanced and had some really interesting issues to work through and deal with.
She wasn't likeable but her struggles were relatable and showed her humanity.
Overall, a good read for a lazy afternoon.

THE BUNKER IS DESIGNED TO KEEP THEM ALL SAFE.
In the end, very few people made it to the bunker. Now they wait there for the outside world to heal. Wolfe is one of the lucky ones. She's safe and employed as the bunker's pharmacist, doling out medicine under the watchful eye of their increasingly erratic and paranoid leader.
BUT IS IT THE PLACE OF GREATEST DANGER?
But when the leader starts to ask things of Wolfe, favours she can hardly say no to, it seems her luck is running out. Forming an unlikely alliance with the young Doctor Stirling, her troubled assistant Levitt, and Canavan - a tattooed giant of a man who's purpose in the bunker is a mystery - Wolfe must navigate the powder keg of life underground where one misstep will light the fuse. The walls that keep her safe also have her trapped.
How much more is Wolfe willing to give to stay alive?

This is a thrilling read.
Wonderful well written plot and story line that had me engaged from the start.
Love the well fleshed out characters and found them believable.
Great suspense and found myself second guessing every thought I had continuously.
Can't wait to read what the author brings out next.
Recommend reading.

I was provided an ARC from NetGalley and the publisher. This is my own hone\st voluntary review.

💊The Pharmacist // Rachelle Atalla 💊 AD PR Product

I have to start with a huge thankyou to @netgalley @rachelleatalla and @hodderbooks for my advance e-book copy!

Set in a dystopian future, this story follows Wolfe a pharmacist living and working in an underground nuclear bunker (think Fallout vibes). I was apprehensive to read this book as I was worried that being a pharmacist myself I’d find the book a misrepresentation of a job often misunderstood. However I was quickly proved wrong and it turns out the author is also a pharmacist! The writing is great and effectively creates a suspenseful, claustrophobic, and tense narrative. The plot twists genuinely took me by surprise and I really enjoyed not knowing where the story was going. I was slightly disappointed by the ending and think an epilogue would have nicely wrapped everything up however I’d recommend this book to anyone who fancies something a little bit different!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Pharmacist is out now 💊

I got The Pharmacist by Rachelle Atalla for free from NetGalley for a fair and hones review.
The Pharmacist is based around those dystopian novels where a small number of the population have escaped to hide from the destruction of the earth and wait for its recovery.
One of the pharmacists is Wolfe a woman who left everyone she knew before going into the bunker alone.
The Pharmacist, in one way can be called a me-too dystopian novel as all the women and children in the novel are in fear of being attacked.
This is not a bad thing as I feel it is one of the ways that that this type of novel can be expanded to cover several different aspects of life in a confined space.
In fact, it is the sexual assault that drags Wolfe into the unequal relationship between her and the leader who lives in the lap of luxury.
This gives the novel it’s second string to its bow in how it examines the way that absolute power can be changed in such a confined space.
In addition, I really loved the second-string characters in this novel for example the people who use their imagination and travel books to explore the cities as they were before the destruction this allowed me as a reader a more visible representation on what had been lost.
This types of unnecessary scene for me really makes a book, the reason is while The Pharmacist would still have been an enjoyable read without the addition of the scene, it shows so much what has been lost and how people can deal with that loss.
All this makes The Pharmacist an enjoyable book to read.

Utterly unexpected and utterly brilliant - this gripped me from page one. The chilling atmosphere makes for an unsettling and disturbing read, the pace never quite allowing you to relax. Wolfe, the titular Pharmacist, alternately drew my sympathy and frustration, yet always made me root for her. Such a unique premise and a pretty masterful telling of a (hopefully) speculative future (but who nows these days!) - dark, twisty and tense whilst remaining characterful, human and ever so slightly hopeful.

TL;DR
Liked but didn’t love. This is a post-apocalyptic story about the residents of a bunker slowly losing their minds with too many loose ends for my liking

THE JUICE

Post-apocalyptic but put it underground in a bunker with what can only be described as a dictatory prick running the show. Here are the fancy bullet points:

✨ The chosen few flung into a nuclear fallout bunker
✨ A pharmacist (Sarah Wolfe) just trying to live her best life in an underground tin can
✨ Some insane power plays
✨ A moral compass that is being flung all over the place

Wolfe is lucky to be in the bunker. Or so she’s told over and over.
Being one of the few pharmacists in the bunker, she’s the resident’s pill giver-outer, dispensing everything from period products to diazepam in a vain attempt to tackle the crushing depression from living an insanely controlled life.

Whilst things have never exactly been peachy, the leader of the bunker, Natha Douglas or ND, starts to go all dictatory on their asses. With his behaviour becoming more erratic, he starts asking Wolfe for little favours in exchange for treats (such as solid food) which she can’t possibly refuse. The only question is, what is she willing to sacrifice for these little tastes of home?

THE TAKE
Given the way things are going right now, this book felt a little more like a glimpse into the future rather than a work of fiction. A terrifying thought but I’ve also played A LOT of the Fallout games so this genre is absolutely my jam.

HOWEVER.

I just couldn’t fall in love with this book. And it drove me up the wall because it sounded perfect. The only things I can think of were:

Wolfe’s character was portrayed exactly as I imagined she would be except I neither loved nor despised her. She was just there doing uninteresting stuff.
There’s no punctuation to show when someone’s talking which hurt my dyslexic brain and left me spending too much time figuring out which was dialogue and what was world-building.
Loose ends. If you don’t like books that don’t tie things up nicely, this isn’t the book for you. I’ll put a wee spoilers bit on shitbookreviews.com to show you my VERY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS that I wish I could wrap up.

The plot points in this book are absolutely banging as is the world-building inside the bunker. I just wish there was a little more closure for my simple brain.

This is going to be a Marmite book – it will either be your jam or just not for you.

The premise of this book intrigued me. It is set in a bunker essentially, after some cataclysmic event has occurred. The specifics of what has happened and whether there are other survivors of it are left unexplained. This is in itself, not a bad thing, we don't always need to know the intricate details, and the setting itself is interesting enough to provide a study of what people will resort to in a closed off environment. The execution of this had mixed results for me. I enjoyed following our main character as she navigated her way through a situation she found herself in with the bunker's leader. However, I didn't find the plot particularly compelling and just felt a bit "meh" by the end. An interesting concept though.

This book was one of the titles that I was most excited about this year but unfortunately I ended up DNFing it at 30%. The pacing was incredibly slow and there seemed to be no real sense of urgency compelling me to keep reading.

This is a beautifully written, claustrophobic story of a woman, Wolfe, who works as a pharmacist in some kind of post apocalyptic bunker. Protected from the inhospitable world and chosen for her pharmacy skills, she has separated from her partner because of her infertility. She is alone in the world and forms some unlikely friendships. What is she capable of to show loyalty to their leader? I was left wanting more, to know what happened before and what would happen next. Chilling and yet with a glimmer of hope,

The Pharmacist is a post-apocalyptic dystopian novel that follows inhabitants of a bunker. In particular it follows one of the inhabitants Sarah Wolfe. Sarah Wolfe is one of two pharmacists who has been chosen to live in the bunker. However she is unsure as to why she was chosen and why only chosen inhabitants were allowed in the bunker. Life in the bunker is not as plan sailing as everyone thought it would be, food is rationed and the inhabitants have to follow some strict rules in order to survive, but Sarah is now faced with a dilemma of whether to meet the demands the bunker’s leader is putting on her in exchange for some real fresh food and to stay alive.

Sounds good right!! Well to an extent it was. I was intrigued by the premises and really enjoyed the first part of the book, but then the book started getting heavy and slow. At first, I was really interested in learning about Sarah but as the story progresses I found it more and more difficult to care about Sarah. I also found the ending a little disappointing, as it left me with way too many unanswered questions.

At the beginning I really liked the writing style and pace but sadly as the story progressed it started to feel a little problematic. Everything started to feel like it was just going around in circles. Maybe it was intended to be like that as the story is set in a bunker, and it’s supposed to feel realistic as possible but it just didn’t work for me.

I really liked the idea of this book and although it has a very slow plot I think it wasn’t a bad read. Even though I wasn’t blown away by this book like I was expecting to I think it’s worth giving a go!!

I’ve been going back and forth between the chapters of this book for a while.

Part because I’m the worst mood reader, part because the first half of the story is at a very slow burn pace.

With everything that it’s happening in our world nowadays, we kind of fear that anything we hear can be possible now.It really feels like the fiction is at the same level in the balance with reality.

And probably that’s the main reason I enjoyed this story more.

So many unbelievable pieces of the plot but very interesting written and intriguing characters.

It makes you stop and this what if and why and how would you try to get away from a situation like that?

A very compelling novel overall.

I really enjoyed this book, a clever plot and something a bit different.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

I really struggled to get into this but once i got into it, i was hooked! it was so riveting and a breath of fresh air from what i usually read!

I feel like the thing I found most interesting about this book is the potential for it to become a reality. We live in a world where nuclear threat is a really real thing and so I found it fascinating to be catapulted into that situation.
I think it was a slow burn really but I quite enjoyed it overall, I found the decisions very intriguing and love a book that makes you question what you would do in that circumstance. I think after COVID people are a lot more likely to believe in the unbelievable and this book made that a reality for me!