You know me, I love Janice Hallett and find her a really interesting author because she never writes books just in straightforward prose and I am so intrigued to read what she will do next because she always surprises me! This book is told through forum messages, text messages, and emails. I love how as a reader you kind of have to fill in the gaps because there's so much you aren't told.
The protagonists of the book are many. There are six students, who are all starting an MA course in Multimedia Arts or something like that. It's a new degree course and their tutor, Gela, is keen to get funding for future years, so she needs this year to go perfectly. There are three examiners, too. One of them, Ben, sends all the included info to the others. He thinks that one of the students has gone missing, and is possibly in danger, and he wants their opinion on what has happened. This is stated clearly at the beginning of the book, so the reader knows what they need to look out for.
The six students are a bit of a motley crew. The youngest is Jem, who is only about twenty two and is freshly out of her BA art degree. She has a lot of enthusiasm but is also quite nosy and often private messages others on the course. Her closest friend is Patrick, who is about sixty, and who owns an art supply shop and has been persuaded into doing the course. There is Alison, who was an emerging artist about ten years ago and is seriously the 'face' of the course - it seems like Gela is using her to get brownie points and lets her get away with a lot. There's another woman and two other men; all with different levels of artistic talent and experience.
Jem soons starts picking faults in her fellow students, but the reader sort of understands why. Everyone tries to placate her and sort of babies her, but they also seem to want her to just stop, too. As the months go on all the students do their assignments - the reader gets to read the tutor's review of them - and then are told that their final project will be to work together on a huge installation for a client.
I liked the book but I'm not entirely convinced about the pay off at the end. For that I'm giving this four out of five instead of five.
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