Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
Publication date January 1st 2016
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Suspense
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Source: Corvus
Goodreads
S Y N O P S I S
A woman’s search for the truth about a brutal attack on a teenage girl puts her in danger in this tense, emotionally-charged psychological thriller: perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train or The Book of You.
Alex is sinking. Slowly but surely, she’s cut herself off from everything but her one true love – drink. Until she’s forced to write a piece about a coma ward, where she meets Amy.
Amy is lost. When she was fifteen, she was attacked and left for dead in a park not far from her house. Her attacker was never found. Since then, she has drifted in a lonely, timeless place. She’s as good as dead, but not even her doctors are sure how much she understands.
Alex and Amy grew up in the same suburbs, played the same music, flirted with the same boys. And as Alex begins to investigate the attack, she opens the door to the same danger that has left Amy in a coma…
R E V I E W
A slightly different genre to what I would normally post on here, but this blog needs variety, so that’s what it’s going to get. This psychological thriller follows Alex Dale, a journalist with a serious alcohol addiction. When visiting the hospital for research on her latest freelance piece, Alex notices a familiar face, Amy Stevenson, the girl who was abducted. The girl in a coma.
The book follows the perspectives of several different characters, all within past and present (1995-2011). Amy is in a mind state where she is still her fifteen year old self, fifteen years after her attack. We also follow Jacob, Amy’s childhood sweetheart as well as Alex, as she delves deeper into the unsolved case. Jacob has started a new life; married and expecting his first child with Fiona, his skeptical and untrusting wife but there is underlying fear of guilt surrounding him to still cling onto his past. Alongside coping with her alcohol addiction we see Alex’s past life and how she got into the difficulty of her current life – it’s a sad story, but I feel like as a reader I would have loved to have read more about her and her ex-husband.
We are left as readers on a trail of uncertainty and collecting clues along the way led me to predict the correct attacker! (Yass). I loved how we got to see what Amy was thinking, it gave an added air of mystery to the novel, which I felt gave the reader motivation to continue reading up until the last chapter just so they could see if their prediction was right or not.
C O N C L U S I O N
I really enjoyed this book and I felt that the length of the chapters made it easier to read. I loved how we got to see different characters perspectives on the situation that occurred, making it more interesting and exciting for the reader as they gained more knowledge.
