If I Die Before I Wake

by Emily Koch

[zooloo1983]

The premise for this book was such an interesting one and for a buddy read we were excited to see where this would go. The MC Alex life is a thrill-seeking one of a rock climber, daring to scale the sides of cliffs with a group of friends. However, something went wrong and he wakes up in the hospital….the problem is, well he is in a coma! He is unable to communicate with anyone, all he can do is lie and listen to his visitors and try to remember what had happened on the day he fell.

For a change, the clues and the misfit jigsaw puzzle is herded to us by the visitors at Alex’s bedside. He does not remember what happened, his memory being jogged by what he hears around him. You feel for him, the struggle and frustration of not being able to communicate with anyone are hard to read and experience with him. Even more so, as a reader you are like Alex, unable to do anything to influence the outcome of the story.

It is really such an interesting concept, to tell the story from this point of view. You are there with Alex every step of the way, working the clues, listening to hushed conversations, trying to figure out what is going on. This I liked, this was good! Yet, something just did not work for me, I felt some of it was drawn out too much and when the big reveal happened I found, for me, I did not care and the book slightly dipped in form. On one hand, I found the ending refreshing and satisfying and thought ‘yes this is perfect’, on the other hand, I was deflated and thought ‘well what was the point of that’.

This is a debut for Ms Koch and I thought that it was good! She draws you into Alex’s life, his lies, the secrets of his friends and family. There was such rawness with his family and the decisions that they had to make for Alex, all the while he is lying there screaming in his head that he is alive and ok! I was screaming at his Dad, the doctors, everyone to watch him and to not give up. There were some lovely touches with the mention of the kind nurse who looks after him and the janitor who sits by his bed watching the sports with him made me smile.