The Bunker Diary

The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks

This review contains spoilers

How would it feel to have the power to control someone’s life, to play God?

“You know, the kinds of games that let you play God. Yeah, I can see Him liking that. He’s bound to be that kind of person.”

Imagine being kidnapped and drugged and then waking up in a strange place. 

That’s what happens to Linus.

Imagine discovering the person who kidnapped you was spying on you and listening to your every word. How would you feel?                   

Linus tries to do everything in his will to stop this and nothing works because he’s not the one with the power.

What would you do when you’re joined by 5 other strangers?                                                                                                                                                                                                               

There’s Jenny, the sweet little girl who saves them with her innocence.                       

There’s Fred, the drug addict whose strength saves everybody.                                         

There’s Anja, the greedy one but the food will save them later on.                               

There’s Bird, the fat guy who’s a killer.                                                                                         

There’s Russell, the thinker who helps Linus.                                                                                     

And then there’s Linus, the smart one.

What happens when he decides to test everybody?                                                                      

Fred takes the drugs, Anja takes the cigarettes and Bird takes the alcohol.  The Unknown man is clever enough to play them against their weaknesses, the game begins…..

What happens when you try to escape?                                                                                 

They’re all frightened and scared so they’ll try anything to escape.                                   

But the Unknown man isn’t stupid, he’s omniscient and he won’t let them fight back.     

For they will then be punished.                                                                                                       

At first it’s just the gas making them ill and the food not arriving.                                     

But when there’s still no hope of being saved or getting out, Linus gets desperate. And that’s when things get much worse; no apology will help them this time.

What happens?                                                                                                                                            

Everybody gets ill from the gas and weak from the lack of food and then comes the rabid dog. The dog bites Bird and this makes Bird go crazy and later on he ends up strangling Anja till she dies. One down. Bird is then tied up, but he’s gone wild and chews his way out. He goes after Jenny. Fred saves Jenny but ends up killing Bird. Two down. While this is happening, Russell who has a brain tumour and is slowly dying kills himself. He smashes his glass eye and uses the broken pieces to cut his wrist open, he bleeds out and Linus finds him. Three down.

After this the Unknown man either leaves them or his patience runs out because the generator turns off leaving them with no electricity in the dark and no food and water is supplied.  Fred, Jenny and Linus are slowly dying. Fred is the first one to crack and he drinks the bleach from the bathroom and has a painful death, Jenny dies in Linus’s lap from starvation and dehydration and Linus follows shortly.

The Writing Style                                                                                                                                

The entire book is written from Linus’s point of view, he writes everything in this journal that the Unknown man placed in every room. It’s a fast paced book and has this slightly tense/creepy atmosphere to it. You realise from Linus’s pov how adding a group of people together is both a bad thing and good thing in this situation.

The Ending       

                                                                                                                           

  “this is what I know                                                                                                                                 

it doesn`t hurt any more                                                                                                               

   this is ”  

It leaves you thinking ….