Rating: 3/5
Review:
Slightly disappointing
This is a difficult book to review because its central
premise of a narrator in a Persistent Vegetative State is quite well done and
rather invites a high rating, a bit like actors playing terminally ill people
or Holocaust victims to try to boost their Oscar chances, but as a novel I
didn't think it worked all that well.
Alex Jackson is in hospital almost two years after a fall
while rock climbing, still unable to move at all, but conscious and able to
sense and feel things. The story is
entirely told in Alex's voice as he lies in bed; visitors and medical staff
whom he can't really see but can hear perfectly talk to him and to each other
and it becomes clear slowly that police now believe that the fall wasn't an
accident. A psychological thriller
develops as suspicions develop.
Alex's state is very well portrayed, but it's not enough to
carry a whole book, so even though it's a worthy subject, things did drag quite
badly in places. The original premise
aside, the plot is average, pretty implausible psychological thriller stuff,
with more than a whiff of deus ex machina about the denouement. A tense and emotional ending did work for a
while, but the eventual culmination felt over-sentimental and didn't affect me
as it might have done.
The book is well written and deserves praise for an original
take on the genre, but although it feels slightly churlish I can't give it more
than three stars.
(My thanks to Vintage for an ARC via Netgalley.)
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