Three Hours

This amazing book held me captive from beginning to end. From the start its action packed as the gunmen make their presence known and they shoot Mr Marr, the headmaster. The children running to the library to hide and barricading the door with books. The sixth formers in the English room, as their teacher reads poetry, the ones in the theatre ready to rehearse Macbeth, the younger classes running to the beach to hide under the cliffs and the innocent seven-year-olds in the pottery room in the woods, unaware of all that is happening around them.

We get snippets of each, of teachers trying to be brave and protect, of teenagers showing so much courage alongside fear and their shock and outrage when they discover who the gunmen are. I had my suspicions about one of the gunmen and was so disappointed to be proven right. I kept hoping that it would turn out not to be him. I actually genuinely felt sorry for him, you can see this isn’t really him and that as a lonely, depressed person he was an easy target and now he has crossed the line, and there is no going back.

A young Muslim teenager Rafi is running through the woods trying to get to his loved ones, whilst being a target for these sick and twisted terrorists. An eight-year-old boy is also hiding from the gunmen, alone and scared.

This book is heart-breaking and fantastic, it is deeply moving and superbly written. You are taken on a journey with each and every person that is hiding from the gunmen and with the police on the other side, fighting to help and rescue these innocent young lives.

I couldn’t recommend this book highly enough. Read it, you won’t be disappointed.

Submitted by Stephanie