Snap: The Sunday Times Bestseller

Product Information

Snap has fantastic empathic characterization, including the brave and savvy, Jack, who I was rooting for throughout. Three years later, Jack is trying to keep up a facade of normality and stop his little sisters from being taken into care. Snap by Belinda Bauer Quick summary: Jack’s mother disappears and a week later is found dead, and years later Jack is looking after his younger siblings while attempting to get to the bottom of her murder. Her 11-year-old son, Jack is left with the responsibility of caring for his younger sisters and has to find creative ways to support them.

Sure, you could argue that the book portrays a family falling apart in the aftermath of a crime (sort of), and the kids are very well portrayed, but this book is the opposite of challenging and does not point to anything beyond its face value. Many thanks to Grove Atlantic via NetGalley for the arc AVAILABLE TODAY in exchange for an unbiased review.Marvel is unconventional, a direct opposite of Reynolds, who plays by the book and has great expectations of himself. She gets inside the heads and hearts of her characters to provide a rich, deep and often humorous viewpoint. Though I’ve heard that Bauer and McDermid have the same agent, so that would explain quite a lot if true… though it still doesn’t explain how 4 other judges just went along with this.

The judges anticipated this argument in advance and argued that the book “transcends the tropes of its own genre”. I think it is an unusual book to be longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, as I understand it, but I like it! Snap illustrates that life isn’t necessarily straightforward and that morality can have very blurred edges.I was pretty bored on and off with this story and had trouble focusing because I felt like there was nothing happening.

I’d highly recommend this to anyone looking for an intelligent, character-driven read and I completely support the book’s inclusion in the Manbooker longlist! I enjoyed reading this book and would highly recommend it despite the horror of the initial incident and the poignancy of its memory. As an aside, I loved this bit - Catherine's mother left her husband because he moved his lips while reading.There are several examples of this in the story, in particular the decision of Jack’s mother to get in a stranger’s car.