Assumption can be a dangerous thing
Author : Alice Feeney
Title : Sometimes I Lie
Published : 23/03/2017
Pages : 384
Format : Paper back
Publisher : HQ
My name is Amber Reynolds. There are three things you should know about me:
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it.
1. I’m in a coma.
2. My husband doesn’t love me anymore.
3. Sometimes I lie.
Amber wakes up in a hospital. She can’t move. She can’t speak. She can’t open her eyes. She can hear everyone around her, but they have no idea. Amber doesn’t remember what happened, but she has a suspicion her husband had something to do with it.
Lately I been moving away from the procedural crime books and towards thrillers and mystery. So this was the next book to come in to my field of vision. I was curious to see how this would play out with our hero locked inside a coma. How would she be able to unravel the mystery of how she came to be where she is. And what dark path would I be lead on to get there.
As we start off on our path Amber is already in a coma trying to understand it from the inside. She is a very complex character to get to know as the title would suggest you have to figure out which parts of her story are true. At time I was left trying to figure out what type of person she was. From strong and bold to quiet and afraid. As a the read I felt I was being lead on a merry dance with out any real sense of where I was being lead by Amber. This is a good thing as she had me just where she wanted me at every step of her story. I spent most of this book feeling sorry for her and the way her life was turning out. She seems to be at the mercy of everyone around her. All the while her sister has more control over her life with her husband and twins she would appear to have everything her sister wants from her own life. As I spent more time with these people I started to realise that every thing was a lot more fragile than would first appear. Over all this story only contains a very small number of people but its how they have chosen to interact with each other that defines its essence. Its hard to explain more as it forms the core of the story.
This is a very well plotted out book the author had an amazing way of making me think I knew exactly what was going on to then pull the rug out from under my feet. She is amazing at manipulating the way I felt about characters with just a slip of a few words. Knowing who to trust within this book becomes increasingly hard as the pages fall way. She plays with the thought of is there a difference between small and big lies. Can they in fact have the same ability to cause damage. This book for me showed that I think it can depending on the lie. Even the smallest of things can blow out of all proportion. She splits the story between three very distinct points of view. Both straddling before and after Ambers comber and also back into the child hood of our characters. This is used to allow us to see things from different perspectives and also to lead me up to certain events that change my attitude to the people I was reading about. The authors style is one that is easy to get on with and I didn't feel disappointed. What did get me are the sections about Amber being in a comber. It felt very claustrophobic being locked in her body with her. The though of being trapped inside my own body full a wear of everything around me is one I find terrifying. This I suppose heightened my reading of these sections. I guess you may find a different emotionally response if this thought doesn't bother you but for me its not a pleasant one.
There are a few twist scattered across the book that kept my interest up. By the time I came to the big revel I was blown away the author had managed to lead me on a completely different path to the one I thought I was on. So bravo for that it is not often that it takes me to the actual words to realise what's going on. At times I think I have read to many of these types of books to be truly lead astray. For me this is a book about how people can manipulate people around them to get a favourable outcome for them selves. It is as much about the readers assumptions as it is about the people we are reading about. Some time we want to believe that the thoughts we have are facts. Our brains will rationalise these in that pursuit no matter how outlandish they are. And the fallout from getting the actually truth of these can be massively destructive.
This is defiantly a book of two halves and the author does a great job of playing this out. As I was making my way through I started to worry ware it was going. But as I got about half way through things started to pick up and I became completely absorbed with the story. I would point out that I had started this the night before and in the morning I was so desperate to find out what was going on it nearly made me late for work. While this has a slow start it is defiantly worth giving it some of your time.
There are a few twist scattered across the book that kept my interest up. By the time I came to the big revel I was blown away the author had managed to lead me on a completely different path to the one I thought I was on. So bravo for that it is not often that it takes me to the actual words to realise what's going on. At times I think I have read to many of these types of books to be truly lead astray. For me this is a book about how people can manipulate people around them to get a favourable outcome for them selves. It is as much about the readers assumptions as it is about the people we are reading about. Some time we want to believe that the thoughts we have are facts. Our brains will rationalise these in that pursuit no matter how outlandish they are. And the fallout from getting the actually truth of these can be massively destructive.
This is defiantly a book of two halves and the author does a great job of playing this out. As I was making my way through I started to worry ware it was going. But as I got about half way through things started to pick up and I became completely absorbed with the story. I would point out that I had started this the night before and in the morning I was so desperate to find out what was going on it nearly made me late for work. While this has a slow start it is defiantly worth giving it some of your time.
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