Darkside

“Darkside” by Tom Becker is a children’s novel about two boys named Jonathan and Ricky. They have both difficult lives considering that Jonathan has a very sick father and Ricky has a tough time in school because of the other students is picking on him.
One day, Ricky and Jonathan, ends up in a dark world within London called Darkside. A world full of vampires, werewolves, thieves, murderers and famous characters like Jack the ripper.

Ricky and Jonathan are both rare to the darksiders for being “half darksiders - half lightsiders” and they are being haunted by a bounty hunter from Darkside. During the time in Darkside they are trying to figure out their problems that they’ve caused, and how to get back to their real world.

I found this book very breath taking and very detailed explained which made it easy to picture the environment and situation the characters experienced. I recommend this book to first of all young teenagers but also adults, and specially to those who likes classic fantasy stories. I found this book quite easy to read and as earlier mentioned it was very detailed explained and that made it more interesting.

The book also had a very good structure considering that you first get to read a bit about Ricky and after Jonathan and how they manage to get into Darkside etc. But basically two stories told, and then see how these two stories ends up into one when Jonathan and Ricky first meet each other within Darkside and together trying to cooperate to get out of Darkside safe.

The good story encourages me to keep on reading this book. The characters felt real and was well introduced. I liked how the characters change later in the story for example how Ricky first seemed very insecure and at the end being more daring. Same goes with the werewolf Carnegie who did not care to much about Jonathan in the beginning but finds out that he knows Jonathan’s father and then takes on the responsibility of Jonathan because he thinks he have to. But during the time with each other Carnegie starts to grow quite fond of him instead.

I’d give this book 4 out of 5. It was not perfect and some parts were a bit predictable, but still a very good book worth reading.

Axel Andersson. Peer corrected by Cecilia Hamstedius, Nils Axelsson, Filip Stenegren, and Lovisa Edblad. NATE15