I was drawn at first by the frnt cover of this book - and I know you should never judge a book by it's cover - but I am so glad I did. I really enjoyed this book it had a compelling plotline with well developed characters and it was well written with vivid descriptions so that I actually felt quite claustrophobic and breathless whilst reading it.
A really good book that I enjoyed reading.

I’m not sure if it’s because the copy I received is a proof copy, or if it’s the writing style, but I couldn’t get used to the lack of quotation marks to signify speech.

It makes the task of reading a chore, rather than an enjoyable, reflective, or introspective experience. Had to DNF.
Sorry, but wasn’t for me.

Not the sort of book that I would normally pick up but I was grabbed by the dystopian theme, the remaining people from a civilization living in a bunker, waiting until it is safe enough outside for them to start rebuilding the world. The title pharmacist, Wolfe is in charge of everyone's health and medication in the bunker, giving her access to people's secrets and weaknesses. She builds alliances with other people in the bunker, coming to the attention of the leader and assessing what it will take for them to survive.
Atmospheric and claustrophobic, this was a well told and unusual tale of survival and human courage.

An interesting concept--I really liked the narrator and the worldbuilding of life in the nuclear bunker, especially with the implication that the world may not have been destroyed as they were told, but I felt the actual plot was a bit stale. Lots of dystopia/speculative fiction uses the "reluctant informant becomes a double agent for the resistance" plot and this wasn't doing anything that felt fresh or distinctive.

I was really intrigued by the concept of this novel. Set in a dystopian future it has a claustrophobic feel.

Whilst I quite enjoyed it I wasn’t a big fan of the main character. It didn’t quite hit the mark for me but it kept me reading all the same.

Set in a dystopian future this story is about survivors living in bunkers after an nuclear war.
Wolfe is a young woman working as a pharmacist who dispenses medicine to the population.
Living in the bunker is hard as the population is crammed together and there is no reprieve to their mundane existence. People are expected to do what they are told and their leader is not a person to to be ignored.
I really enjoyed this book, it had me gripped from the beginning.
Thank you to NetGalley and Hodder & Sloughton for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'm afraid I gave up on this one part way through. It just wasn't for me. I didn't empathise with the main character, in fact I really didn't like her, and that's an important thing for me when reading. It was an interesting concept but just not my thing.

Set in a bunker Atalla creates a claustrophobic and dismal setting within the bunker as we watch the characters going through their monotonous daily lives while trying to maintain their sanity.

This highly claustrophobic novel feels like an exaggerated view of the current times, the writing style is so good that it easily evokes the conditions these characters are living in. In fact so accurately are these conditions portrayed that I personally found it to be too difficult to finish reading. In view of this I find it difficult to rate...should I give 5 stars because it was so effective or 2 stars because I couldn’t read it? I sat on the fence and rated it 3! Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review.

Post-apocalyptic living in an underground bunker without privacy and little joys, where people are slowly losing their humanity and dignity. And then there is Wolfe, the bunker's pharmacist, grateful to be safe and in the same time questioning her mind and sanity, wanting more for herself and others in this claustrophobic atmosphere. She meets the leader, erratic and paranoid man who wants something from Wolfe for exchange of food.
Danger is everywhere and Wolfe connects with others and tries to survive.

Well written with gripping story and characters that the reader can relate to. Suffocating atmosphere, anger, rage, love, all the emotional palette is there and you just can't put the book down.

It also opens the question - is it better be safe and trapped or...?

Highly recommended.

Post apocalyptic, tense, claustrophobic, intriguing and thought provoking...just some of the words that could describe this book. The post apocalyptic market is pretty much packed these days and a book has to stand out from the crowd to make it to the surface. This one should break the surface and be successful.

The Pharmacist is a post-apocalyptic novel, but it is also a 'slice of life' story. We actually learn very little about the apocalypse, or the build up to the events of the novel. The world building instead focuses on our protagonist's entire world - the bunker they now live in. We follow the mundanities of everyday life in the bunker, with a constant undertone of uneasiness. We see how little control the residents of the bunker really have over their own lives, what happens to them when they start to question the sinister leadership, and what people are prepared to do to save themselves.

One of my favorite genres is apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic and this is a perfect example of why. The atmosphere is perfectly chilling, oppressive and compelling all at the same time.

The plot is intriguing and well written, following life underground after a catastrophic event and makes you question what would you do to survive and where would you draw the line. I hope there's going to be another book which allows us to see more of what is actually happening outside the bunker.

My only complaint is that there are no quotation marks which makes it hard to determine what is dialogue and what isn't.

*Thank you to @netgalley and the publishers @HodderBooks and @HodderPublicity for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Gripping, intriguing, pressured speculative thriller. Great voice and characters and an uncomfortable but brilliantly executed read. Lots to think about and such an interesting premise.

This isn't a book for the faint hearted. It's a dark, claustrophobic read about a Pharmacist in a bunker in a post apocalyptic world. As you read this you really do feel like you're in the bunker with them. There is a lot of tension throughout the book but I feel like this tension doesn't change which leads it to being quite flat and tingle toned throughout
It was a very different read to what I am usually used to but not a bad read.

This book is really interesting and kept on my toes. The claustrophobic element of the story taking place in a bunker is something that really makes you think what will happen next. The characters are well formulated and story progression is really commendable. Thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.

Forgive me if this review is a little jumbled; I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this book.

First of all, and this is an important one; it's written without any quotation marks, or anything to delineate speech. This leads to things like

We can't talk here. She looked around the room. Someone might be listening.

No one's listening here, I said. It's safe.

Maybe.

I've made up those lines for demonstration purposes, but look at that third one. Because the whole novel is narrated from inside Wolfe's head, there's nothing to say whether that's her thought or something being said by someone else. And as often happens in proof books, some of the paragraphs ran together, which meant that every so often I had to stop, go back and dig through a section to try and figure out logically who was saying what. Now this is a proof and it's possible that in the actual book, there will be something to mark out the speech; but it's also possible there won't be, so just be aware of that.

The actual story is great. I was feeling more and more claustrophobic and hemmed in as time went on. I do wish there had been a little more backstory; something happened about seven months before the start of the story, probably something nuclear, and 0.2% of the city's population is crammed into this bunker to wait for three years for the world up top to be safe again. There may be other bunkers, or that might be a comforting lie. (I ran those numbers: the city nearest me has a population of about 544K, and 0.2% of that would be 1100 people. For New York, on the other hand, 0.2% is closer to 400K. Let's put the bunker population somewhere between those two.) The preparation seems to have been a little haphazard; there's plenty of anti depressants, although not enough to cover the whole population for the whole three years; there are decorations for a nursery, although reproduction is forbidden and in fact women have contraceptive implants; but everyone is living on packets of nutritious mush in different flavours, and there doesn't seem to have been any attempt at setting up a growing area or bringing in chickens. People sleep on bunks stacked four high in huge halls and have very little privacy.

I did love the basic idea, though. It had never occurred to me that medical personnel would be that busy in that kind of situation, although of course they'd want to catch anything infectious very quickly. It's a really clever position to put someone in to allow them to see most people regularly without actually being noticed. Who pays attention to a retail worker?

Spoilers below:

Part of the plot involves a huge wall that can divide the bunker into two equal parts, ostensibly to protect against an infectious disease. At one point it comes down and does not go back up, blocking the two halves off from each other and stranding people on the 'wrong' side. Except the leader's rooms specifically open into both sides, and he's had plenty of women in there over the year or so that's happened so far. Why do none of them suggest using it to get back to their own side?

Overall I really enjoyed this. I'd love to see what happens after the three years, but if Rachelle chooses to move on and write something else, I'll be there for that too.

The idea of the book is great. Slowly the story unravels a bit like the characters.
I found the writing style really challenging which may have meant I missed things as there's some bits towards the end that when I finished I'm not sure I'm fully satisfied

This was a very enjoyable, nerve wrecking read for me. And yes, very claustrophobic. Intense.. Dystopian horror.Highly recommend though may be triggering to some.

A very claustrophobic book.

Sarah Wolfe is one of the pharmacists in the bunker. We learn that there was a war and people are sheltering because of radioactive fallout. Wolfe got her place in the bunker because she is needed.

People live in very close quarters and have limited resources, except for the leaders who live in comparative splendour.

We get just enough information about what happened, but most of the plot unravels slowly, just like the inhabitants' sanity.

This reminded me of "Snowpiercer".

No punctuation indicating speech made this a very hard read.