Amy Stevenson was the biggest news story of 1995. Only fifteen years old, Amy disappeared walking home from school one day and was found in a coma three days later. Her attacker was never identified and her angelic face was plastered across every paper and nightly news segment.
Fifteen years later, Amy lies in the hospital, surrounded by 90’s Britpop posters, forgotten by the world until reporter Alex Dale stumbles across her while researching a routine story on vegetative patients.
Remembering Amy’s story like it was yesterday, she feels compelled to solve the long-cold case.
The only problem is, Alex is just as lost as Amy—her alcoholism has cost her everything including her marriage and her professional reputation.
In the hopes that finding Amy’s attacker will be her own salvation as well, Alex embarks on a dangerous investigation, suspecting someone close to Amy.
Told in the present by an increasingly fragile Alex and in dream-like flashbacks by Amy as she floats in a fog of memories, dreams, and music from 1995, Try Not to Breathe unfolds layer by layer to a breathtaking conclusion. @goodreads
MY REVIEW:
5 STARS
I cried at the end of this book, but it was a good cry. It was a somewhat happy ending....
I can't believe this is the author's debut novel. I loved it so much and it really touched me. Sometimes (or a lot of times) when we are young, we do some really stupid things. Amy did a stupid thing, but she didn't deserve what happened to her.
This book tells different points of view. You have Alex, Jacob, Amy, and a little bit from Sue.
Alex is was a journalist with a happy marriage to Matt, but she drank everything away. Now she is working on her drinking (somewhat) and working on something with patient's in coma's.
--->EXCERPT<---
"How terrible to have no voice," said Alex, as she took scribbled notes and swayed, nauseated, amongst the electric hum of the hospital ward.
Alex was writing a profile piece for a weekend supplement on the work of Dr. Haynes, the elusive scientist researching brain scans that picked up signs of communication in patients like these. She hadn't met the doctor yet and was skidding toward her deadline. A far cry from her best work.
This is where she finds Amy Stevenson who has been in a coma for 15 years! Amy can breathe on her own and can do some little tests the doctor has worked on with the patients showing they can communicate. It's very sad. We get to read about Amy's story and then at some point Amy takes over and starts talking in her mind. It's really brilliant.
Alex gets obsessed with trying to find out what happened to Amy all of those years ago. Her ex-husband Matt helps her a little bit. She tracks down some people from Amy's childhood and even talks to Amy's stepdad and biological father. She also teams up with Jacob. They had a rocky start at first but then Alex explained everything she was trying to do and Jacob wanted to help. You see.. Jacob, was Amy's boyfriend at the time she was attacked and left for dead all of those years ago. He now has a wife Fiona (can't stand her) and a baby about to pop out.
I love all of the ins and outs of this book. I loved going on the hunt with Alex and I'm very proud of her for battling her demons and tracking down a killer/rapist. I love that she kept going to see Amy after it was all said and done, she would talk with Amy, listen to music with her and treat her like she could really hear her, which she could!
Oh Amy, baby girl, please come back to the real world. Stuck in a fifteen-year-old brain and a thirty-year-old body. I just love her.
I thought this book sounded good when I read the blurb, but I had no idea I would fall in love with it. This will be one I re-read many times.
**I would like to thank Random House Publishing for a print copy of this wonderful book in exchange for my honest review.**
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