How does a doctor examine a person’s brain? They won’t use knives on me, will they?

England is at war and everyone is worrying and panicking in the city. But Rowan Scrivener, nicknamed Rowan the Strange because of his mental illness of schizophrenia, is staying in hospital, far away from everything and anything to worry about.

Rowan grew up in a normal family, grandmother, mother, father, younger and older sister. Everyone was extremely happy, but Rowan started to have some temper tantrums that slowly got worse. So much worse that he would get panicked about the smallest thing. His sister was playing a piece of music by Beethoven, a German composer:

‘It’s alright, Rowan tries telling himself, this is just our Lol practising some music, like she always does on a Sundays, before we have our roast. It doesn’t mean anything. Nothing bad is going to happen.’

Even though he knows this, he still gets very angry and ends up slamming his sister’s fingers in the piano lid, breaking them. His mother and father get very worried about him and send him away to a hospital for people with mental problems.

I liked the character Rowan because later on in the novel he seemed very kind and loving. Even though in the beginning of the novel he wasn’t in control of his own body, at the end he was, and I feel through having schizophrenia he had learnt a lot about life.

The novel is written very well and in great detail about what Rowan is thinking. It must have been hard for Linden to write like this unless she knew someone with schizophrenia; and if she didn’t she has obviously done a lot of research before writing this novel, which makes it seems deeper and more of a story in some ways.

I enjoyed this novel; even though it wasn’t the greatest read of all time, and I could put it down, it was still a successful book because the story line never bored me or had me thinking about something else while I was reading it. 

I would score this book 7/10.