Illegal Written by Miriam Halahmy. Reviewed by Grace, Age 13

Illegal by Miriam Halahmy is a teen novel revolving around the story of a girl called Lindy who gets entangled in a dangerous international drug ring and has to escape before it’s too late.

I really enjoyed this book because there were so many interesting characters and plot twists that I never guessed would happen. I also loved seeing Lindy and Karl’s friendship blossom throughout the book because they were definitely an unexpected pair but they worked really well together!

My favourite character is Karl because he becomes a huge part of the story and influences Lindy in a really positive way. We, as readers, also get to find out a lot about him which is really interesting.

The author dealt with the difficult topic of drug trafficking in an unique and interesting way – instead of just showing the obvious negative sides of the practice, she also portrayed the “benefits”, such as the high wage that Lindy receives which is essential to her for feeding her little brother. This helps the reader to at least partly understand why someone would knowingly get involved with something as dangerous as this if they were extremely desperate.

In the middle of the book, Lindy begins to get really scared that she will end up like her two older brothers who are both in prison. This, among other issues, causes her to self harm. This is the main reason that I would definitely only recommend this book to teens aged 13+ because the detail of this is quite graphic and can be disturbing.