A Review of The Forbidden Room by Sarah Wray

I am reviewing The Forbidden Room by Sarah Wray. The protagonist is a girl called Jenny who loses both her legs in a car accident, which also kills her mother, so she has to move into a childrens home.

Jenny worries nobody will want to foster her because of her disability, but she gets fostered by Helen and John Holland, who have a young son, Stephen. They sympathise with Jenny as they had two young daughters who became ill, then immobilised and died.

They seem like the perfect family, but something's not right. Overheard phonecalls and strange behaviour put Jenny on edge. When she find the diaries of a young girl called Mandy under her floorboards, her story raises even more suspicions in Jenny. As the opportunity to go skiing with an amputee programme arises, everything comes to a head, and the truth is mindblowing.

I thought this book was very interesting and not at all what I expected from the cover. I thought it would be like a horror story, but it can be very moving and sensitive in some parts, especially during Jenny's relationship with Lee from her foster home. The ending is completely unexpected, and I never knew what would happen next.

I think thi book would be even better if there were less sub-plots and it focused more on the main story. Although everything seems to come together quite well in the end, it can become quite complicated and far-fetched in some places. Also there seems to be a lot of mixing of genre, and sometimes the story seems to go off into romance, then into sci-fi and at other times into fantasy.

I think this book will be appropriate for all ages,but perhaps more for girls than boys. I rate this 4/5 stars.