Lexicon by Max Barry

So I have a thing for poetry, and word play, and words, and the English language in general (obviously), which is what made me grab this book off the shelf. The book has 'Nothing is alive in there, just a word' plastered right on the cover, which makes my craving for wanting it on my bookshelf, quite obvious. It also counts as enough motivation to want to buy it even though I know I'm willingly exhausting the last few currency notes in my wallet right when I'm at the 'broke month end' phase.

Anyway, back to the book. As the very attractive tag line suggests, this book is about words, the language, all of which are mastered by an undercover community of people known as 'poets'. Before you generalise, these poets aren't actual depressed individuals who go around writing poetry. They are masters of manipulation, simply because they know how to play with the language. Not going too much into detail because I don't want to give anything away. 

So the book revolves around two separate individuals, Emily Ruff and Wil Parke. Parke is described as being kidnapped right at the start of the book by the poets, and having no recollection of why or what is happening to him. Emily on the other hand, is a broke young girl, recognised by one of the poets while she performs road side mind tricks on people, and is automatically recruited into their organisation. Emily's journey through her training in the 'organisation of poets' and Wil's escapades with his unknown kidnappers are simultaneously sprawled over the pages of the book. Gradually, Will begins to bond with his kidnapper and he is let into little amounts of information regarding what really is going on with him. Also, after a certain point, both their stories begin to collide (again, obviously), and the mystery behind 'the horror of Broken Hill' is unveiled. Broken Hill is said to be a small Australian mining town, which faced total annihilation because something absolutely terrible was released into it, and it quite literally, has something to do with a word. This apocalyptic description bound with the whole 'wordplay, masters of manipulation' thing was what kept me going throughout the book.

Now if your interests are similar to mine, there is a good chance that you will enjoy the book. However, to be quite critical, the book is kind of a buzzkill, simply because towards the end, things seem to get kind of obvious. But overall, it is worth one read, although I must say, not worth getting rid of the last few amounts of money in your wallet.