Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe Review

Concentr8 by William Sutcliffe

“Everybody wins, yeah? Schools, teachers, feds, parents? Everyone. Except the kids that are taking the pills.”  

Concentr8 is story of a kidnapping that occurs at the time of riots. After Concentr8 a drug which is given to people who have ADHD or have signs of it, is taken away people take to streets in protest and in the chaos a group of teenagers kidnap and take a council worker hostage.

ADHD: Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

The story is taken from many perspectives; Troy, Femi, Karen, The Mayor, The Journalist, The Hostage, Lee, The Negotiator and Blaze. Were they all needed, no! The story is very boring as nothing much happens the story mainly goes around in a circle with the group talking about how they made a mistake, the mayor making a bigger mess and the hostage just talking about how he feels. The only interesting perspective is the Journalist as she actually did something.

The book is essentially about how the government put greed and money in front of the care and needs of those with ADHD and really any teenager. The govt started giving out Concentr8 to nearly everybody who isn’t perfect which leads to ill side effects when it’s taken away. The govt can then blame the riots on the mental issues of the rioters.

The group who take the worker hostage – Troy, Femi, Karen and Lee are led by Blaze. The chapters just go on about how they’ve ruined their lives by blindly following Blaze, how they can’t go against Blaze and other weird things.

The characters did have distinct different personalities and I liked that about them but the writing style was so bland and the plot was so boring and uneventful that I didn’t care about the books or the characters.

Also the book ends with a snippet from books/articles about ADHD which I didn’t care much about and added little to the book.

★★☆☆☆