*****
A concept that all readers are familiar with; the power of words. ‘Lexicon’ is the story of what would happen if words had the power to compel other people’s actions. What if a person learned the specific combination of words that would make you kill someone? Love someone? Forget everything about yourself?
Barry has written a thriller that I enjoyed on two levels. The level where I could just enjoy the characters and the story (which are both fantastic by the way), and the level on which I could think about the words and the psychology of the book. We’ve all known those people that have some strange compulsion over us. Maybe it’s our own feelings towards them that make us so, or maybe it’s just that they know us well enough to use the right words.
At it’s heart though, this book is about love. Love and what happens when we repress it. There are many characters in the book that repress their feelings for others and we get to see how, in a world where they have the power, that can affect the whole world. One man in particular keeps his emotions so deeply buried that power and control become the only things that matter to him. His search for power leads him to be the cause of an entire town’s destruction, and the destruction of countless other lives in the process.
It’s a good book to make you think, but I did get a bit lost towards the end as it flashes back and forth in time without any warning. It can sometimes be difficult to follow; you find yourself reading whole paragraphs about characters that died in the previous chapter! That is really the only downside though. I loved the action and the dynamics of those scenes, Barry launches straight into it at the beginning of the book too; there’s absolutely no introductory faff, you’re just straight into a kidnapping and a car chase from the first sentence!
Let me know what you thought.
Have a lovely day,
Alys.
Alys the Book Wyrm 
Added to my list. Thanks 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person