Sometimes I Lie by Alice Feeney #BookReview

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 any more

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. Alternating between her paralyzed present, the week before her accident, and a series of childhood diaries from twenty years ago, this brilliant psychological thriller asks: Is something really a lie if you believe it’s the truth?

 

I purchased an ecopy of this novel at the release because many blogfriends recommended it to me. Of course I needed the publication (and purchase) of the second novel by Alice Feeney to finally bump it up my readlist. I’m happy I finally got round to reading this because I really enjoyed it.

There are no less than 3 plotlines in this novel but this was never confusing and I actually like it when there’s a lot going on as was the case here, it keeps me turning those pages. One of the plotlines follows Amber when she’s 11 years old, another one follows her in the present a few days before she finds herself in the hospital and the last one is the one with Amber in a coma. Well she isn’t actually in a coma, she can hear perfectly fine what is going on around her, she just can’t react in any way. As if that’s not enough, she also can’t remember what happened to her. It’s all rather terrifying and her paranoia towards her husband and sister really rubbed off on me :-). It’s not easy to figure out who to trust when you can’t ask any questions. Someone did this to her and I was ready to crucify them myself!

It made sense that there’s a plotline leading up to ‘the event’ but it was puzzling what the plot about her younger self had to do with the story and how she ended up there. It focused largely on her family situation and her friendship with a girl named Taylor when she was a young girl and I had no doubt there was a meaningfulness that totally escaped me; Taylor wasn’t mentioned in the present at all.

The author built up the tension in the days and hours towards her hospital admission and surprised me with a major twist of category 5 (I know, I just decided to have my own rating for twists and this one is of the same order as being told the earth is flat). So many things are actually connected but invisible to see at first sight. The past did have an effect on the present and to understand the present you have to know about the past. I might sound as if I’m talking in riddles but you just have to read it for yourselves if you want the full detail! I’m impressed with this author’s clever writing and I seriously had to wrap my head around that twist.

In conclusion: a wonderful debut that will keep you guessing for a very long time. Read it, it’ll keep you very entertained! 

I purchased an ecopy of this novel. This is my honest opinion.

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