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    Born Scared
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    Born Scared
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    Born Scared
    Audiobook5 hours

    Born Scared

    Written by Kevin Brooks

    Narrated by Matthew Frow

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

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    About this audiobook

    Elliot has lived his first thirteen years confined to his home, incapacitated by fear. Now he's out of pills, snow is falling, and his only safe person is missing. A terrifying thriller from Carnegie Medalist Kevin Brooks.

    From the moment of his birth, Elliot's life has been governed by fear of almost everything, even of his own fear—a beast that holds him prisoner in his room. The beast is kept at bay, though not eliminated, with a daily regimen of pills. But on Christmas Eve, a mix-up at the pharmacy threatens to unleash the beast full force, and his mother must venture out in a raging snowstorm to a store that should be only minutes away. Hours later, when she still hasn't returned, Elliot sees no choice but to push through his terror, leave the house, and hunt for her. What happens if the last of his medication wears off and the beast starts scratching at the doors of his mind? Everyone has a breaking point—will Elliot come to his? With plot twists and turns that keep listeners on the edge of their seats, multi-award-winning author Kevin Brooks offers a high-suspense exploration of fear and what it means to truly be afraid.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateSep 11, 2018
    ISBN9781978644434
    Author

    Kevin Brooks

    Kevin Brooks was born in Exeter and studied in Birmingham and London. He had varied jobs in a crematorium, a zoo, a garage and a post office, before he secured his first book deal for Martyn Pig, a black comedy about a 15-year-old who decides not to tell the authorities when his alcoholic father dies accidentally. Martyn Pig was shortlisted for a 2002 Carnegie Medal, won the 2003 Branford Boase Award, and set the tone for the dark subject matter of Kevin's novels.

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    Reviews for Born Scared

    3.5/5

    28 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      In Born Scared we meet Elliot, a mentally ill 13 year old who is wracked with anxiety and afraid to leave the house. He lives with his mother and talks to his long dead sister but has no other social connections. The story centers around what happens when Elliot's mother goes to refill his medication and doesn't return as expected. Elliot must then decide if he should force himself to leave the house to look for her or not. There is a parallel story happening at the same time involving a hostage situation. Brooks ties the stories together as the book progresses. This is a fast paced thriller that does hold your interest and gives great insight into the mind of a teenager struggling with a crippling mental illness. My biggest complaint with the book was the abrupt ending. I wanted more resolution and more insight into the aftermath and consequences of the ending. All in all this was an enjoyable read with some unexpected twists. This review was based on a free copy of the book that I received through the Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      This is one of those books that make me want to reach into the pages, pull out the main character and give him a hug. Elliott suffers from severe anxiety, he is afraid of almost anything including other people (he refers to them as monkems). But one fateful night, Elliott is plunged into his worst nightmare and he must find the strength inside him to fight his monsters.This book shows us how crippling fear can be for those who suffer from anxiery, their triggers and how it affects their relationships. It also shows us how seemingly unrelated events can intersect and connect to create unexpected outcomes. And it shows us that there are two reactions to fear - flight or fight, and that sometimes we have to choose the latter in order to survive.This book is both nerve-wracking and heart-wrenching. I enjoyed the build-up but the ending was so abrupt that it left me hanging. I want to know how Elliott and Gordon is in the aftermath, and what happened to the bad Santas. Overall though this is a good read, much thanks to LibraryThing and Candlewick Press for the review copy.
    • 4/5
      This summer, I am teaching credit-recovery English in summer school. That means all the students enrolled have failed an English class. I included this book in my choices for the independent reading project. A sophomore chose to read it, and he finished it after just 3 weeks of in-class silent reading. He said, "I don't usually like reading, but this book was really good!" He said the story was interesting and kept him wanting to read more. He also said the main character, Elliot, was very relatable; "I can understand how he feels!" He is excited about reading another of Kevin Brooks's novels.
    • 4/5
      3.5 stars13-year old Elliot has been afraid of everything since he was born. About the only things he’s not afraid of is his room, and three people: his mother, his aunt, and his doctor. This is a severe, debilitating phobia of everything. He needs pills just to make the phobias less severe (though they are still there). One Christmas Eve day, just before the stores will be closed for a couple of days, there is an error with Elliot’s prescription. Elliot’s mom must leave him at home by himself to go pick up the correct prescription, but things go terribly wrong, and Elliot must find a way to get that prescription before it runs out…This was good. It is YA, so the chapters are short and overall, it’s very fast to read. I thought the author has some really good descriptions of Elliot’s fears. I was waffling between 3.5 stars (good) and 4 stars (really good), but went to the 3.5 when it ended without wrapping up quite as much as I would have liked to have wrapped up. Also, there was a lot of coincidence in things happening as they did at the same time as Elliot was trying to get his prescription. Still a good read, overall, though.
    • 3/5
      I found this book to be a little problematic, though I see what they were trying to accomplish. Fear, anxiety, worry... mental illness. I feel like these things were amplified and because of that it brought me out of the real world and much further away from real people who deal with these things every day.
    • 4/5
      Interesting glimspe into an anxiety ridden protagonist who rises up and overcomes a difficult situation. kept me turning the pages.
    • 2/5
      Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a copy for review, however I was disappointed to find that this book just didn't work for me.The opening of the novel was gripping. It set out the premise well, detailing Elliot's condition and raising the tension. His mother has left, Elliot is certain something bad has happened to her, his medication is running out, and he's trying to build up the courage to look for her. Added to this are some vague supernatural elements (which could easily be part of Elliot's worsening psychosis) which gives us the recipe for a pretty tense story.Unfortunately, the novel can't keep this up. As soon as Elliot leaves his home, the tension fades away. Part of this, for me, was the fact that it's difficult for the outside world to seem that scary. While Elliot panics when he sees people or cars or sheep, rationalising how dangerous they are in his own mind, some of these fears seemed so ludicrous that they came across as more funny than frightening. He also finds a surprising number of villains in his brief adventure - the kind that are not that common in rural Yorkshire - which seemed a tad unlikely. Personally, I thought that Elliot's mental state was dramatic enough.By the climax of the novel, everything had blown out to ridiculous, action-movie proportions. I don't really want to spoil any more for you in case you read it, but I will say that the novel stretched my suspension of disbelief a tad too far and didn't even end especially well. It just broke off with apparently Elliot not having developed at all as a character, or learned anything as a result of his ordeal. This was incredibly disappointing and made me feel as though I'd wasted my time in reading the novel.So, all in all, the book had a strong start but went rapidly downhill. I've not read any of this author's work but, based on this, I'm not sure that he's the writer for me.
    • 4/5
      By the book’s title, and its intriguing cover with an image of a figure holding a beaming flashlight through a flurry of snowflakes as darkness falls all around, readers expect that someone -- the always fearful, thirteen-year-old, Elliott -- will certainly be venturing out on a stormy night. Elliot’s a boy who rarely leaves his room, let alone his house, and he must take yellow pills to quell his anxiety. Yet he’s not totally unaware of the outside world because his bedroom sanctuary has walls of bookshelves that he reads, and he's also well aware of how to use Google on his computer. But one snowy winter’s day the pharmacy makes an error and Elliot is down to his last pill, so his single mom (who understands her son’s fears of beasts and monsters coming to prey on him) decides that she’ll go to pick up what’s needed. She fails to return shortly, and now Elliot knows that he must muster the courage and try to find her, for she is the person he cares about most. Still, Elliot also has another caring entity, one in the form of an unearthly voice that’s been familiar to him since his earliest memories -- Ella. And it’s Ella's ever- presence that – mostly -- encourages and cheers him on. Once Elliott crosses the threshold out into the stormy night (the cliché works well here) the intricate plotting of the story takes hold. There’s some laugh-out-loud humorous moments while he’s on his journey and a few backstory lapses that are reminiscent of how frightful it feels to be small in a big world. Aside from a bit too much telling early on of Elliot’s angst, this book shows what it means to be truly brave and courageous when those who are cared-for are in danger. This danger -- and the criminal element of this tale -- is handed out skillfully in intervals and it's what enhances and hooks the reader, giving added proof to Kevin Brooks’ fine storytelling gifts. It’s a really good fit for young readers (age 12 and up) and thank you LTERs for the opportunity to read and review this book.
    • 5/5
      I received this book as part of a Librarything giveaway. Thanks a lot to Candlewick Press for sending it my way!Fortunately for most of us, we live in a world where mental illnesses are being more and more accepted and acknowledged as severe and debilitating diseases that can have a huge impact on a person’s life. That said, more and more people these days admit to suffering from anxiety disorders and panic attacks and many of them find help in therapies and medication. However, I think I’m not being too bold when I say that the majority of these people does not know what it means to be scared of pretty much everything and anything. When you were born with this constant fear that something might happen to you, that no one can be trusted, and that nothing will ever change. I personally have this kind of fear and have had it since I was born. And because of that this book has been an amazing gift as it’s the first book I’ve read so far that accurately describes how it feels to be scared of life itself.The books’s main character, Elliot, has known fear for as long as he can remember; from the day he was born. The only place he feels safe is his room and the only way he can cope with life is by taking heavy duty medication that keeps the “beast” that is fear at bay. On Christmas Eve, however, Elliot runs out of his medication and his mother has to leave the house and battle a huge snow storm to pick up his refill prescription. When she doesn’t come back home, Elliot and his dead twin sister Ellamay (who serves as his conscience and voice of wisdom) have no other choice but to go out into the world and look for their mother. Needless to say, for someone who is scared of pretty much everything, this is not an easy feat to pull off...This book is a godsend for everyone who wants to know more about anxiety and what it’s like for the person suffering from it. As someone who has a mental disorder very similar to Elliot‘s, I can say that the portrayal of his fear is accurate and very well articulated. Though the severity of his disorder is rare, it does exist! On top of the great depiction of his anxiety disorder, Kevin Brooks also adds a great second story arc, namely the kidnapping of Elliot’s mother and aunt and his courageous choice to save the day. It’s a brilliant book that deserves so much more praise than it already received!
    • 4/5
      Born Scared by Kevin Brooks is a YA thriller that certainly kept me glued to the pages. The main character is Elliot and Elliot is afraid of everything. Not afraid in the usual sense of the word but bone deep terror over just about everything from the color red to any new situation or person. He lives in his room, never leaves the house and counts the time between his anti-anxiety pills. Until the day before Christmas when everything swings out of control. He’s out of pills, there is a blizzard outside and his Mom is missing. Elliot must get over his paralyzing fear, leave the house and search for her.I received a copy of this book through LT’s Early Reviewers Program and although I loved following the various story lines, I would have liked a little more information put into the ending when the various plots come together. Overall though this was a stellar read that I totally enjoyed. The author was able to keep the tension level high through his excellent pacing and Elliot’s inner voice allowed us to appreciate how difficult just stepping outside was for him. Born Scared was the first book by this author that I have read, but I am now going to be looking for more of his work.