Review: Show Stopper by Hayley Barker

I won a copy of this book in a competition by the Author (Hayley) and so after a couple months I decided to read it, because I had heard of it a few months before but not had the chance to buy it.

Can you guess what attracted me to this book? The cover. I can never resist a shiny cover with gold foil like this.

Here it is:

Sabotaged high wires.

Ravenous lions.

A demonic Ring Master.

A circus without a safety net.

Ben, the teenage son of a powerful government minister, attends on opening night and falls under the spell of Hoshiko, the tightrope walker and star attraction.

But as he steps beyond the dazzle and spectacle of the arena, to reveal the horrors that lurk beneath, can he find the courage to resist, to rebel, to help end the cruelty and the carnage?

Step right up for this heartbreaking and heart-racing story - the darker the danger, the louder you'll scream...

So, I admit, this wasn't what I expected from this book. I thought that it would be a Fantasy book that filled with magic in carnival form (as are most that I've read), but I was wrong. It is far from that. Instead I found a Dystopian book of the near future that tackles the issue of racism, where there are Pures (those born in Britain) and Dregs (those that are immigrants and not born English). It did remind me slightly of the Hunger Games, so if you like that, you may like this too.

This meant that it was much more dark than I expected, but I did love it. This book goes between two characters POV's and they were Hoshiko - a Dreg tightrope walker, and Ben - the Pure son of a government minister that wants to get rid of all Dregs.

One thing I would have liked to see more of in this book is world-building - or the history of the UK, as we didn't see much in this book, but I'm hoping that we hear a bit more on the rebellion that started the distinction of people into 'Dregs' and 'Pures' in the next books.

It's such a dark take on the circus - deadly acts that could easily kill the Dregs that participate in them, and regularly do actually kill them. I've not read a dark circus book before, so it definitely interested me. I must also say that the ending of this book made me want more - I can't wait to see where Hoshiko and Ben can go after what happened, but I know I'll be joining them on that journey if book 2 comes out (hopefully soon).

I give this book - 4.5 cats (Just because I would have loved a bit more of the history to this world)

Have you read this book before? What did you think? Comment below!