The Call

The Call by Peader O'Guilin

This is a little bit of an unusual book as it blends folklore, horror, fantasy, and coming of age themes into one magnificent, suspense filled book.

An amazon summary, "THREE MINUTES

You wake up alone in a horrible land. A horn sounds. The Call has begun.
TWO MINUTES
The Sidhe are close. They're the most beautiful and terrible people you've ever seen. And they've seen you.
ONE MINUTE
Nessa will be Called soon. No one thinks she has any chance to survive. But she's determined to prove them wrong.
TIME'S UP
Could you survive the Call?
A genre-changing blend of fantasy, horror, and folkore, The Call won't ever leave your mind from the moment you choose to answer it." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE

During your adolescence, the Sidhe may call you. You have to live for 24 hours on their island, the Grey Land, which is 3 minutes our time. Your best bet is to run. The Sidhe only want to kill you/punish you as your ancestors trapped them on this island.

You may choose to be put to sleep for the duration of your adolescence, or attend survival school where they will train you on everything they know about the Grey Land, and best ways to survive. The survival rate is still pretty low, but it is gradually getting a tiny bit better. Most still end up dead.

In the very beginning of the book, someone receives the Call on a bus Nessa (our main character) is on. They immediately stop the bus and wait the three minutes to see if this stranger comes back. They always do come back, but it will most likely be a mutilated corpse. This time is no different. The stranger has come back with mini antlers.

Nessa was born with a twisted leg, she is automatically at a disadvantage to survive, but she is hell bent on living. Each aspect of her life is constantly controlled by the best ways to survive, she does every bit of training, reads all there is to know about the Grey Lands, for when her Call comes, she wants to live.

That's enough summary.

I really loved the world building of this book, and the narration is in third person omniscient, so it can jump around to the different characters and also get inside their head. I loved the progress of what we learn about the Sidhe, why they were trapped, and what the Call is really all about.

The character growth of Nessa felt very authentic because you got a true sense of what the world was like, how the cards were stacked against her, and her sense of determination to LIVE despite all of that.

However, it was REALLY dark and took a very hard look at humanity. There was also a lot of blood, gore, and unflinching brutal honesty about what was going on. It's kind of hard to avoid any of that when the Sidhe are murdering children. Normally, I have a hard time reading books that are just gruesome, because they don't usually serve any kind of point. I didn't have any difficulty reading this book though. Sure, there were some times I flinched a little or kind of physically moved away from the book as if that would distance me from the gruesome scene I just read, but it was never bad enough that I put down the book and walked away.

Happy reading!