Mini Book Review – Monochrome

Recently I have been reading Monochrome; and it was a bit bland! Written by Jamie Costello, and published by Atom; Monochrome is a young adult science fiction novel, set in a world where everyone starts to lose colour vision, until some start to see flashes of red, and are sent away for further tests! Monochrome is a very interesting concept, which likes to show how the world may look in grey-scale, and how this might affect the world. So there’s stories of people losing colour vision, and then animals, which begins to affect the natural order of things. The concept though does start to lose focus, when the author uses the book to reference the Covid-19 Pandemic. And then the story changes pace, and turns to scientists looking for a solution, and the participants who get sent away to a secret test facility, somewhere in Norfolk. But this doesn’t last long, as (of course) it’s not a squeeky clean operation, and bad things happen. The thing is though, that the book is at it’s best when things are taking place at the facility. There’s one chapter that was so graphic in it’s depiction of medical testing, that I needed to take a break from reading as it felt too graphically real for someone who nearly faints everytime they see an injection needle. In addition to this, cool new characters come into the fold to enrich the story. But again it doesn’t last long, and then we go on this road trip, where it feels the whole point of the story has been throw out of the window in favour of something else entirely. And then…the final act is so anti-climactic! You’d expect a book like this to wrap everything up, in a satisfying way. But it doesn’t! There are so many unresolved plot threads, and the ending tries to wrap it up in a quick and positive manner, instead of a more satisfying one, which would tie up all loose ends. But it doesn’t!