Blame by Simon Mayo Book Review

Simon Mayo is responsible for one of my favourite book trilogies as a teen, the Itch trilogy. Long story short, it was about a science geek named Itchingham (a curse of a name, I know) who discovers a radioactive rock not found on the periodic table which had the power to be a new energy source, one the wrong people were willing to kill to get their hands on. It was a ton of fun, and then I saw that Mayo also wrote Blame, a standalone prison escape novel. Naturally, I ordered it fast as I could, and afterwards, while I did enjoy myself, I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if I was still a teenager. Maybe I would’ve been able to look past some of the potential it wastes and just enjoy the choices all the same.

Blame has one of the most disappointing starts to a book in recent memory for me. It starts with our hero, Ant her preferred name, not actually in jail. She managed to escape with the help of some inside contacts, and then…sneaks back into the jail so her family that’s also there with her won’t get punished. Showing someone escaping early on and feeling freedom immediately takes away the illusion of impossible, of challenge, of claustrophobia, and the satisfaction when it’s time to, you know, escape for real.

Also, Ant has a devoted friend on the inside, a guard that sympathizes with her and goes above and beyond to help her. In Samira Ahmed’s incredible book Internment, her protagonist had a similar sympathetic guard friend, but here it’s overplayed. These two things make escaping not seem like that hard a challenge, diluting much of the thrills. Also doesn’t help that the breakfasts they eat seem actually delicious; oatmeal, bacon, cereal? Makes the whole place seem more like a boarding school that’s getting stricter management instead of a prison. The masterful Escape From Furnace series had a prison that served sawdust-flavoured mystery gunk three meals a day and would kill you in a heartbeat. So in comparison, it’s just not as involving.

But I will admit the book does eventually pick up. When some unsavoury people get their hands on some weapons and get in control of things, that’s when the ride truly begins. It briefly turns into a thriller reminiscent of Lord of the Flies, and then we go to the fugitive part. It’s pretty exciting and satisfactory. I was reading it at an airport, and the time flew by quickly.

An ally the kids make along the way who lives in a smelly but surprisingly effective off-the-grid life is charming enough, and there’s enough hiding and sneaking to work out just well enough for a recommendation. Blame is an okay thriller, but it probably would’ve been an instant favourite had it been a little more grounded in reality about the state of corrupt governments, and made the detention centres more menacing like we know the real-life ones are in the no-longer united states.

My grade: 3 stars out of 5