Zero Tolerance

The British education system has been slowly languishing for many years, suffering from defunding and having attention grabbing, but ultimately useless ideas forced on it. The cries of experienced educators have been drowned out and it seems empathy is at an all time low... or so I believe from what I've read in Zero Tolerance. This was a great, satirical work which weaves in astute thoughts on politics, refugees and the general ridiculousness of 21st century life. The Old Grey Owl really breathes life into teachers, a career which has been disrespected by the government for a while now

I found it a little difficult to get into at first, but felt I was truly riding a well thought out rollercoaster by the end.

At first, I got a really weird vibe while I was reading this. However, as I continued reading, that feeling went away. It was written well and I felt a lot of thought went into it. I have a lot to think about now and it was nice to see a different portrayal of educators. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this!

TL;DR - this is a very slow burn, with many characters, and it took me a while to get into it but the ending was kinda worth it. If you're into perspectives of teachers and the hidden drama behind school policies this might be up your alley.

For the first 70% of this book I was going to give it 2 stars. The story was interesting but very slow. I usually like a slow burn but this was a little too slow for me. There's also so many characters introduced as narrators that fade out and you don't hear from them again til way later that it makes it hard to keep track sometimes. There's also nothing noting who the narrator is as it switches so it might take a minute to figure out. The other part of this book that kinda through me for a loop is the time frame. It takes place over 3-4 years. 50 pages would encapsulate a day and then the next page would jump ahead 3 months. I feel as if the slowness, the switching to many different characters, and the time-jumping really made it hard for me to read this book and get as absorbed as I normally do.

But then the last 30% of this book happened and it convinced me to give it a 3rd star. The whole plan comes crumbling down and you don't know til last minute if Rick is on the good side or not. I liked the ending with Rick, Karim, Evana. I like that justice was semi-served. I cried during the reunion at the end. I'm glad I finished this book. I'm happy I got to read the ending because I did really enjoy it. But I don't know if I would read this book again due to how long it took me to read in comparison to similar/longer books.

I wasn't sure if I was going to stick with this book. It was really really slow at first. However, the premise of schools with secrets always gets me. It really does pick up and I found it worth the wait!

Thank you to NetGalley, The Book Guild and Matador for an advance reader copy of this book, Zero Tolerance, in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book, I thought it hit the nail on the head concerning some really important topics and I'd definitely be interested to read more from this author.