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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
4.5 stars
This was good. It made a long car ride slip away. It’s also the second or third book Ive read involving a coma patients. Even though I know this is fiction, this story (with the others) has changed/challenged my preconceived notions around coma patients and vegetative states.
I also loved that our hero is deeply, deeply flawed and begins her journey from rock bottom. The ending had me 😭😭😭😭😭
The way this book is put together is artful, interesting and cool. The story and narration changes/grows/adapts as the narrators do.
The main narrator is a freelance journalist whose life is a hot mess. She’s lost her full time job, husband, and all her friends due to her drinking. She isn’t holding it together. While on an assignment involving hospitals, she sees Amy, a woman who went missing at 15 and was later found beaten, leaving her in a coma for the past 15-ish years. The story is part investigation into what happened but periodically we also get ants thoughts, which go through their own evolution... the truth is revealed and you’ll guess wrong and then go 😮 at the end.
This was good. It made a long car ride slip away. It’s also the second or third book Ive read involving a coma patients. Even though I know this is fiction, this story (with the others) has changed/challenged my preconceived notions around coma patients and vegetative states.
I also loved that our hero is deeply, deeply flawed and begins her journey from rock bottom. The ending had me 😭😭😭😭😭
The way this book is put together is artful, interesting and cool. The story and narration changes/grows/adapts as the narrators do.
The main narrator is a freelance journalist whose life is a hot mess. She’s lost her full time job, husband, and all her friends due to her drinking. She isn’t holding it together. While on an assignment involving hospitals, she sees Amy, a woman who went missing at 15 and was later found beaten, leaving her in a coma for the past 15-ish years. The story is part investigation into what happened but periodically we also get ants thoughts, which go through their own evolution... the truth is revealed and you’ll guess wrong and then go 😮 at the end.
THIS IS THE BOOK. My favorite so far this year. It was so easy to read and absolutely enthralling. The chapters from Amy’s perspective are heartbreaking in so many ways. I wish I could read this again for the first time!
Sorry...I just could not get interested in this one. It was a miss for me. Thanks to Netgalley for providing a review copy of this book.
‘Should someone else’s family be ripped apart before this is solved?’
So here's the thing about Try Not to Breathe. This is a very well-built story by a very skilled writer about an alcoholic journalist trying to solve a cold case of attempted murder. However: though it has a whole bunch of unnecessary domestic thriller tropes tacked on, this book is not a thriller. It is a relatively slow-paced mystery with practically non-existent stakes.
Indeed, this quote may define the book: She was treading water. Or maybe wine.
Aside from and perhaps partially due to some pretty substantial info-dumping in the first few chapters, Holly Seddon really shows off her journalism chops in this book. This book is highly readable and clearly and concisely told. I also think that is what trips Seddon up - if she and her publisher wanted this to be a thriller, she needed to build the suspense with some twist and turns and some unreliable perspectives. Because she is such an efficient writer, she was unable to accomplish either.
In a thriller, it is not enough to have a stable, complex plot and well-honed, individual characters. To accomplish a thriller, there must be stakes, there must be a contemporary threat, there must be suspense. None of these things are here, and anything approaching it turns out to be short-lived and inconsequential to the story.
Something highly refreshing that she does accomplish? Empowering her ladies. She has four very different central female characters, and they all have power and agency in their own way. This book is an unexpected healing journey for all four of them, and ultimately they are able to lift each other up despite the twisted situation they have found themselves in. I love this.
SpoilerI kept that smile on my face like warpaint.
He looked away and hung his head.
Other than that... this is a simple cold case whodunnit (you'll probably know who did it by about halfway through) with an edge given by some typical thriller tropes and characters. Approach it expecting that, and you'll like this one.
I hope I’m not so scared when I’m in my thirties.
So here's the thing about Try Not to Breathe. This is a very well-built story by a very skilled writer about an alcoholic journalist trying to solve a cold case of attempted murder. However: though it has a whole bunch of unnecessary domestic thriller tropes tacked on, this book is not a thriller. It is a relatively slow-paced mystery with practically non-existent stakes.
Indeed, this quote may define the book: She was treading water. Or maybe wine.
Aside from and perhaps partially due to some pretty substantial info-dumping in the first few chapters, Holly Seddon really shows off her journalism chops in this book. This book is highly readable and clearly and concisely told. I also think that is what trips Seddon up - if she and her publisher wanted this to be a thriller, she needed to build the suspense with some twist and turns and some unreliable perspectives. Because she is such an efficient writer, she was unable to accomplish either.
In a thriller, it is not enough to have a stable, complex plot and well-honed, individual characters. To accomplish a thriller, there must be stakes, there must be a contemporary threat, there must be suspense. None of these things are here, and anything approaching it turns out to be short-lived and inconsequential to the story.
Something highly refreshing that she does accomplish? Empowering her ladies. She has four very different central female characters, and they all have power and agency in their own way. This book is an unexpected healing journey for all four of them, and ultimately they are able to lift each other up despite the twisted situation they have found themselves in. I love this.
SpoilerI kept that smile on my face like warpaint.
He looked away and hung his head.
Other than that... this is a simple cold case whodunnit (you'll probably know who did it by about halfway through) with an edge given by some typical thriller tropes and characters. Approach it expecting that, and you'll like this one.
I hope I’m not so scared when I’m in my thirties.
Despite having a (barely) functioning alcoholic main character, I really enjoyed this. Alex's alcoholism was a plot point - but not to make her an unreliable narrator who has creepy things happen that she doesn't know if they are real. (Besides one small time.) The ending was easy enough to figure out before you got to it - but there were a few wrong turns thrown in for fun. I'm not entirely sure what the title had to do with the story, but I enjoyed both the story and the audio narration.
Loved this book. A page turner for sure. You don't want to put it down.
I would not classify this book as a suspense or compare it to Gone Girl. There was very little suspense and the main character was not very likeable at times. This was more of an awakening type of story with a little bit of mystery thrown in. Pretty ok read though.
With great pacing and two fascinating plots, Try Not To Breathe is a stand out thriller that grabs you immediately and never lets the tension fall. Alex is an alcoholic who has watched her marriage, pregnancy and career slide away from the bottom of her wine glass. She is not really a functional alcoholic, that's too generous a term for her. Amy has her own secrets that she's kept for 15 years, that left her badly beaten and nearly dead. As Alex tries to climb out of her addiction, she is drawn to Amy's unsolved crime. The reader at times will wonder who is less reliable: the struggling alcoholic reporter, the grieving friends or the very silent victim. For lovers of thrillers, this one is sure to please on many levels. -Suzanne R.