262 pages
English language
Published March 22, 2018
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can't move. She can't speak. She can't open her eyes. Though she can hear everyone around her, no one knows because she's in a coma. But she doesn't remember what happened. And she has a sneaking suspicion her husband had something to do with it. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, the narratives build and collide for an ending that leaves readers speechless. This novel delves into the blurred gap between who we are and who we'd like to be.
Good execution of unreliable narrator. This book threw me for a loop several times. Overall it wasn't as enjoyable as some other thrillers because I didn't particularly like the characters, but it was very exciting nonetheless.
Ingenious. Cleverly done misdirection, the type that had me, at the appropriate moment, put down the book, close my eyes, and rethink everything I’d read so far. (This is not a spoiler. The astute reader, picking up on the subtle “SOMETIMES I LIE” hint in the title and on page one, might already be expecting some sleight-of-plot.)
There are no sympathetic characters in this book. Nobody to root for, nobody to like. Normally this redirects a book toward my Abandoned pile, but not this time: the writing was tight, the story gripping. I also forgave the clumsy Dear Diary portions: no ten-year-old writes like that—nobody writes like that, it was just an obvious exposition tool—I chose to grit my eyes, roll my teeth, and stick with it. In hindsight, well, no spoilers but yeah, of course I get it now.
What’s there to like? A lot, actually. I really …
Ingenious. Cleverly done misdirection, the type that had me, at the appropriate moment, put down the book, close my eyes, and rethink everything I’d read so far. (This is not a spoiler. The astute reader, picking up on the subtle “SOMETIMES I LIE” hint in the title and on page one, might already be expecting some sleight-of-plot.)
There are no sympathetic characters in this book. Nobody to root for, nobody to like. Normally this redirects a book toward my Abandoned pile, but not this time: the writing was tight, the story gripping. I also forgave the clumsy Dear Diary portions: no ten-year-old writes like that—nobody writes like that, it was just an obvious exposition tool—I chose to grit my eyes, roll my teeth, and stick with it. In hindsight, well, no spoilers but yeah, of course I get it now.
What’s there to like? A lot, actually. I really enjoyed this book. Feeney has the gift of pacing: building tension, throwing crumbs, tossing in occasional small twists, perfect phrases that you know are hints but don’t yet understand their meaning. She kept me curious and engaged the whole way through. Brava. I hope there’s more where that came from.
