Nocturnal Book Reviews

I can't help it, guys. Max Barry is my author, like Chuck Palahniuk, John Twelve Hawks and I suspect, Cory Doctorow (when I finally get to read his books).

Last year I read Jennifer Government, and it blew my mind. This year Lexicon did exactly the same. It's convoluted, paranoid, bizarre and utterly men in tin foil hats material. I was walking in a haze for a couple of days totally consumed by this book, thinking about it.

If anyone ever looked into legalese, you know that the common meaning of words doesn't always mean what we think it means. Lexicon takes this idea further and creates a powerful organisation which finds young people with the ability to sway human minds and teach them the way to breach our brain defences with tailor made words for different types of personality, which will make us do and think what they want. All for the good of organisation of course.

Lexicon follows the recruitment and education of Emily, a young prodigy, who doesn't work well with the rules, and whose breaking of said rules because she craves knowledge and human touch brings a chain of events of catastrophic proportions.

Few years later, rebellious Emily is back hellbent on revenge and righting all evils the leader of organisation brought upon the people dear to her.

Lexicon is brutal, fast-paced, shocking, heart-wrenching. It's a tragic love story where you least expect it. It's about war, betrayal, cynicism and manipulation. It's about people and incredible things we could do. It makes you think. The latter is what I appreciate most of all in the books I read.

Highly recommended.