Five

by Ilona Bannister ★★★★★

Five opens on a London train platform. We are introduced to five main characters: a child, Gideon; his mother, Emma; a businessman, Liam; an old woman, Mrs. Worth; and a gambler, Sonny. We are told that one of the five will die in the next five minutes. And then author Ilona Bannister spends the next 200 pages counting down the seconds while filling us in on the backstory of each.

In a normal novel, we'd get to know the characters, grow attached to them and dread which one might meet their untimely end. But these are no ordinary characters, nor is this an ordinary novel. Each character is broken in some way, and all have committed acts ranging from strongly disappointing to despicable. They've all said truly horrible things, oftentimes to family and loved ones. I found myself stack ranking whose death would be most justified, rather than ardently wishing for any of them to survive. That lack of attachment to the characters' survival might make you think I didn't care for the book, but it's quite the opposite: this was brilliantly done.

"There is probably one that you're okay getting rid of. Of course there is. You've chosen your favorite. You don't have to admit to anyone who it is. But perhaps you should ask yourself why, what makes them worthy of surviving in the internal universe of your brain where you are God."

There's a shock factor to many of the backstories. When we meet Emma, she presents as a worn out mother struggling with a rambunctious child. But then we learn the reasons behind her having that child, and the "I-can't-believe-she-said-that" type of comments she made along the way, and we think to ourselves, "Hmm. I'd probably be okay if it was her." You'll likely have a similar reaction when hearing the background of the other adults, who each have caused irreparable harm to families and relationships over the course of their lives. And then we get to the child, six-year-old Gideon. I couldn't possibly wish for an innocent child to be the one to die...could I? Could you? Read about Gideon and see what you think. He rivals Violet from The Push, or Kevin from We Need to Talk About Kevin; he's both the most shocking and the most richly rendered of the group.

There are a few common themes among the backstories, with the most persistent thread focused on neurodiversity in children. The full range of parental responses to raising that type of child is chronicled as well, from universal defense to outright abandonment. Bannister, who is "the mother of two brilliant, talented, funny, and spirited neurodiverse children", rails in the book's Acknowledgments about the judgement her children have dealt with for the entirety of their lives. "It wears away at our children, day after day, and it clings until they become adults, and it sticks until they do something...that very nearly can't be undone." However, when seeing the jarring impact the neurodiverse characters in this book have on their families, it's hard to emerge from the book more empathetic to their condition. Bannister has written a novel that certainly raises awareness, but I don't know that an equivalent rise in compassion is a given.

At a swift 221 pages, it's one you can read in a day, and my prediction is that you will. I was hooked from the beginning, and then really hooked by some of the jaw-dropping dialogue and plot choices that Bannister creates. It's great, a solid 5 stars, and a strong contender for my favorite book of the year.

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Quick Facts

• Title: Five

• Author: Ilona Bannister

• Publisher: Crown

• Release Date: May 5, 2026

• Format: Ebook

• ISBN-13: 979-8217088034

• Pages: 221