Eleven by Mark Watson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Picked almost at random as something that looked good to read on holiday. Wow. This is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Xavier Ireland is a late night radio DJ, working with his friend Murray to help listeners with their problems. Xavier has a secret though, and it’s the reason he is in London instead of his home country, Australia. When Xavier fails to help a teenage boy from being bullied it sets in motion a chain of events that affect the lives of eleven strangers.
The “butterfly effect”, “Sliding doors” and the “six degrees of separation” theories have often been used in novels but never to such devastating effect as in Eleven. With a huge cast of characters it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with what’s going on, but Xavier is one of the most memorable characters I’ve come across and I will remember this book for a while yet.
This book is similar in style to One Day so if you liked that, you’ll love this!
