A Sparrow Alone

A Sparrow Alone by Mim Eichmann  311 pages

When the story opens, thirteen-year-old Hannah Owens sits quietly staring at her mother’s face with her two younger siblings. Their dead mother’s face. I was never sure exactly what killed Mother, but it seemed a sort of wasting disease; I’m thinking cancer of some type. Their father is a psalm-singer (very strict Puritan), constantly spewing psalms and working on occasion. He also seemed insane to me.

Author Eichmann sets readers down in 1890s Colorado, where the Owens family lives in horrible, horrible poverty. The family hasn’t eaten much in several days. The doctor’s wife, Mrs. Hughes, arrives, demanding to know what has happened. She rolls up her sleeves and takes charge, making sure Mother is promptly buried.

Mrs. Hughes convinces Pa that he cannot take care of the three children. She takes Hannah with the intention of training her as a house maid. While that seems like a generous thing to do, Mrs. Hughes isn’t the person she appears to be. Soon, she is whipping Hannah, leaving scars that resemble slaves’ backs after beatings.

When Dr. Hughes decides to abandon his wife, Mrs. Hughes throws Hannah and Zuma, the cook, out. The women follow Dr. Hughes to Cripple Creek, Colorado. The doctor is investing heavily in his mistress’s new venture, one that becomes the most famous brothel in Cripple Creek.

Hannah’s life is one of such hardship that it seems that the young woman would not be able to overcome. But Hannah is a fighter, always picking herself up and going on. That is until multi-millionaire Winfield Scott takes a shine to her.

The story is well-researched and gives a truly extraordinary look into just how difficult life was in those days. Much of the story is written in dialect, which always threw me out of the story. One or two times are all a story needs of dialect, and most readers associate that with the character through the rest of the book.

The biggest issue for me, however, is the last chapter. It seemed to come out of left field. It seemed, to me, that Eichmann was tired of writing and wrapped it up neatly. But that can’t be the case because there is a sequel that I want to read. Surely poor Hannah’s life has to get better.

For the two reasons above, “A Sparrow Alone” receives 3 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Yellow Wife

Yellow Wife by Sadeqa Johnson  288 pages

I came of age when the Old South was in its final death throes, and I was no stranger to the horror stories of slavery. This well-researched, oftentimes hard to read, story evokes those stories that I heard as a kid.

Pheby Delores Brown lives on the Bell Plantation in Virginia with her mother, Ruth.  Sired by Master Jacob, he has promised Ruth that Pheby would be educated and freed on her eighteenth birthday. Pheby believes that she will have a good life and is in love with one of the other slaves, Essex Henry. But after her mother dies and Jacob is away traveling on business, Jacob’s wife, Miss Delphina, decides that the uppity young woman must learn that she is in charge.

Delphina sells Pheby to a notorious slave trader, Rubin Lapier, who reigns over Devil’s Half Acre, an infamous jail in Richmond where slaves are taken to be sold or to have their spirits broken. The beatings and whippings, described in minute detail, some of the slaves must endure is the stuff of nightmares. After a torturous walk from the Bell Plantation in Charles City to Richmond, Pheby is chosen by Rubin to be his mistress.

Pheby is treated better than most as Rubin sets her up with sewing clothes for the incoming slaves, especially the ones who he puts to work as prostitutes. Rubin wastes no time in making Pheby is mistress. As the year go by, Pheby longs for the promises of education and freedom that were denied her and she longs for her one true love, Essex.

By the time Essex is brought to the jail, Pheby has had several children with Rubin; Children he dotes on. They are raised in his home where Pheby now lives and sleeps in a bedroom across the hall from Rubin. He even introduces her as the the Mistress of the Jail.

But Pheby cannot forget the man who has her heart, and she does whatever she can to make things better for him.

Author Johnson does not shy away from the realities of slavery, from the fears of being sold to harsher masters, from the fear of the whip and from the fear of familial separation that haunt a slave’s every waking and sleeping minute.

This is not an easy book to read. I swear as I read, I could hear the crack of the whip, the screams as flesh is torn open.

I was disappointed in the ending. It seemed like Johnson got tired of writing and just wound it up. I was planning on giving Yellow Wife 6 out of 5 stars, but the ending forced me to lower its rating to 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world. 

 

Take it Back

 Take It Back by Kia Abdullah     294 pages

Summary (per Goodreads):  The Victim: Jodie Wolfe, a physically flawed 16-year-old girl accuses four boys in her class of something unthinkable.

The Defendants: Four handsome teenagers from hard-working immigrant families, all with corroborating stories.

The Savior: Zara Kaleel, a former lawyer, one of London's brightest legal minds, takes on this case. She believes her client, even though those closest to her do not.

Together, they enter the most explosive criminal trial of the year, where the only thing that matters is justice for Jodie. But this time justice comes at a devastating cost.

I enjoyed this book. The characters are interesting, the plot is tightly written and the pacing is pretty taut. I liked that Zara's own culture and struggles with her cultural identity are part of this story. It brings it past just a rape accusation and creates a much bigger picture of the people involved with this case.  I also liked that I couldn't quite predict what was going to happen -- and be forewarned that there are some twists here.  

The Mayor of Zalamea

 The Mayor of Zalamea by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, translated by William E Colford, 128 pages

A departure for Calderon, but also one of his most popular plays, The Mayor of Zalamea tells the ostensibly true story of a proud peasant whose beautiful daughter became the object of a noble-born officer's lusts.  Caught between his offended sense of honor and the plain letter of the law, the virtuous Pedro Crespo takes a stand for justice in defiance of the entire Spanish army.

Unusually for Calderon, this is a historical piece; even more unusually, it features a protagonist from the lower classes.  For that very reason, the language lacks the grandiosity typical of Calderon, and this may help explain its continued popularity in an era that celebrates mediocritas.  Crucially, however, the play does not resolve with an assertion of equality on the basis of individual autonomy, but with a recognition of equal participation within a larger whole.

The Grace Year

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett, 408 pages

“Survive the year. No one speaks of the grace year. It's forbidden. In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That's why they're banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive. Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life--a society that doesn't pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it's not just the brutal elements they must fear. It's not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.” This book was amazing.  It drew me in almost immediately and I loved it.  It was terrifying and tender, dreadful and hopeful.  The writing is beautiful and I would highly recommend it to teens who like dystopian and subtle horror stories.

Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece by William Shakespeare, 118 pages

The Rape of Lucrece is one of Shakespeare's few narrative poems, written as a complement to his earlier Venus and Adonis.  Where that poem followed the comic pursuit of a beautiful young man by a lust-crazed woman, this one portrays the tragic violation of a virtuous woman by a lust-crazed man.  The subject is a tale from Livy's history, which begins with Collatinus' boasts of his wife Lucrece's proven devotion which provoke the cruel desire of Sextus Tarquin, the heir to the throne.  In the aftermath of his crime, Lucrece publicizes the outrage before killing herself, an act which provides the spark for the overthrow of the Roman monarchy and the institution of the Republic.  Shakespeare picks up the thread with Tarquin's arrival at Collatinus' villa while the master is away at war, pretending friendship while working himself up to assault.

     'Then, childish fear, avaunt! debating die!

     Respect and reason wait on wrinkled age!

     My heart shall never countermand mine eye:

     Sad pause and deep regard beseems the sage;

     My part is youth, and beats these from the stage...'

This provides Shakespeare an excellent opportunity to demonstrate both his legendary poetic gifts and keen psychological insight, and illustrates an understanding of the struggle between freedom and tyranny where freedom is oriented towards virtue while tyranny is slavery to vice, with ordered liberty opposed to lawless libertinism.

     While she, the picture of true piety,

     Like a white hind under the gripe's sharp claws,

     Pleads, in a wilderness where there are no laws,

          To the rough beast that knows no gentle right,

          Nor aught obeys but his foul appetite.

Until Proven Innocent

Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case by Stuart Taylor Jr and KC Johnson, 405 pages

On Monday, March 13, 2006, some members of the Duke Men's Lacrosse team held a party at an off-campus house rented by several of their teammates.  The highlight of the evening was to be a performance by a pair of strippers, but one of the dancers arrived inebriated and unable to perform.  An angry scene ensued, ending with the sober entertainer, Kim Roberts, hauling her drunken colleague, Crystal Mangum, whom she had not met prior to that evening, to her car.  Shortly thereafter, Roberts approached police at a local supermarket, complaining that Mangum refused to leave her car.  Finding Mangum incoherent, the policemen called for an ambulance to transport her to a hospital.  Once there, Mangum told concerned health care workers several wildly different accounts of the night's events, converging on the claim that she had been raped by multiple men at the party.  Although Mangum was inconsistent on a wide range of important elements - the number of attackers, their descriptions, Roberts' role - and although her story was contradicted by testimony from Roberts and the team members, as well as physical, DNA, photographic, and electronic evidence, three members of the team would eventually be charged with rape.  The others would see their season cancelled, their coach fired, and themselves threatened by protesters, denounced by professors, and labelled as racist rape-enablers by The New York Times and CNN.

Yet the main villain of the story, as told by Taylor and Johnson, is not Mangum, but District Attorney Mike Nifong.  For Nifong, a white man in the midst of a desperate three-way election battle in which his opponents were a woman and an African-American, Mangum's story represented an ideal opportunity to appeal to women and minorities.  Once set on this course, the prosecutor was determined to continue to pursue the case even if it required the concealment of exculpatory evidence.  The secondary villains are those activists and media figures who, driven by an ideology of racial and sexual resentment, aided and abetted the injustices committed against these young men.  Finally, the authors are deeply critical of the Duke administration's inability to offer even a qualified defense of their students in the face of the angry mob, allowing outrage to trump evidence.

Taylor and Johnson, both of whom reported on the case as it unfolded, carefully detail the story at every stage of its development.  Their intimate understanding of the personalities involved is clear, and it allows them to prioritize the personal over the political, but unfortunately this also leads to some apparent personal animus against certain figures.  There is also a certain amount of necessary repetition - as lies are repeated over and over with slight variations, so too the truth must prove as tireless as the lies.

Exit, Pursued By A Bear

Exit, Pursued By A Bear by E. K. Johnston, 243 pages

“Hermione Winters is captain of her cheerleading team, and in tiny Palermo Heights, this doesn't mean what you think it means. At PHHS, the cheerleaders don't cheer for the sports teams; they are the sports team--the pride and joy of a tiny town. The team's summer training camp is Hermione's last and marks the beginning of the end of...she's not sure what. She does know this season could make her a legend. But during a camp party, someone slips something in her drink. And it all goes black. In every class, there's a star cheerleader and a pariah pregnant girl. They're never supposed to be the same person. Hermione struggles to regain the control she's always had and faces a wrenching decision about how to move on. The assault wasn't the beginning of Hermione Winter's story and she's not going to let it be the end. She won't be anyone's cautionary tale.” This story is a little unrealistic in that Hermione has a great support system, which is not typical.  However, the author admits that she wanted to give Hermione that.  Frankly, I don’t care.  I loved this book.  I’ve just finished reading three books that I absolutely loved and this one has been my favorite of the three.  Everyone, especially teens should read this book.

milk and honey

milk and honey by rupi kaur     204 pages

milk and honey is a collection of poetry and prose about survival. It is about the experience of violence, abuse, love, loss, and femininity. It is split into four chapters, and each chapter serves a different purpose, deals with a different pain, heals a different heartache. milk and honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.

Though I'm sure this would be categorized under confessional poetry, to me a lot of it read like motivational poster captions or something inspirational someone would probably tattoo on their forearm.  Though I have read enough poetry to know that almost anything can be considered poetry, it doesn't mean I have to agree. I would consider Kaur's writing as more of a diary/memoir of her reflections on her life, particularly the most traumatic moments and how she was able to get past them. I can see how this work is inspirational to some, and Kaur definitely deserves to be called brave because she does not hide the fact that this is a work of deeply personal emotions and experiences. I just can't get past how simplistic most of it seems. But then, a lot of people might really need someone to tell them, "You matter," or "Love yourself first," and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way. This is definitely something I would give to someone I knew was going through a rough patch and really needs some advice on self-care. That being said, I did not enjoy the majority of this book. A handful of "poems" stuck out to me, but most of it seemed derivative of works or quotes I'd seen or heard before. I'm very picky when it comes to poetry and none of these poems really spoke to me or made my skin prickle or caused me to feel a rise of emotion. Perhaps I'm not the intended audience, I'm not sure. Either way, for me, this was mostly just an "eh" book and I probably won't read it again. If you got something out of it, great. I think Kaur is justified in sharing this piece of herself because there are lots of people out there who need to hear the things she's stated in this book.

Not That Bad

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture -- introduction by Roxane Gay and contributions from multiple authors    350 pages

In this anthology, Roxane Gay collects both original and previously published pieces that "address what it means to live in a world where women have to measure the harassment, violence, and aggression they face, and where they are “routinely second-guessed, blown off, discredited, denigrated, besmirched, belittled, patronized, mocked, shamed, gaslit, insulted, bullied” for speaking out."

There are a range of topics and experiences covered here, all of them very personal, even as some address wide-reaching issues (like the rape epidemic in the refugee crisis). Because these are personal essays, I think that some pieces will resonate more with readers than others. However, I felt that all pieces were thought-provoking and discussion-provoking, especially if this was read and discussed in a group setting.

Emergency Contact

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi     391 pages

For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn't actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it's seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can't wait to leave behind.

Sam's stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he's a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him.

When Sam and Penny cross paths it's less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch--via text--and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

This was a really fun read! I enjoyed the premise of the two main characters forming a relationship over the concept of being eachother's "emergency contact." Their text conversations are funny, relatable, and cute and it made this romance a very contemporary, unique one. 

I will say that this book will become dated very quickly because of how niche the lingo can be at times. There are references to YouTube, Instagram, emojiis, and iphones galore. This story is very grounded in the early 21st century, not just with the technology, but also the slang and the references to apps. However, I still find it an enjoyable read. Only time will tell how the content holds up for the future.

I think both Penny and Sam are well written characters - they are unique in their observations and very human in their reactions. I'm glad the author was able to give them distinct voices, despite how similar they were in many ways. All the side characters were interesting and brought some lightness to the angst of the main characters - I would loved to have seen more of Jude and Mallory, but I understand that the focus was not on college-life, per say, and more on the intimate workings of Penny's and Sam's thoughts and feelings and how they processed the world.

Overall, I'd recommend it to those who are looking for a slightly less "juvenile" YA - and by that, I mean, the young adult period of college/almost adulthood, rather than high school drama. Sam is 21, so we're dealing with a more mature young adult (if you can call him mature), with more adult problems. This would be a great read for teens transitioning from reading YA to Adult Fiction. I'd still recommend it to anyone looking for a cute, young romance book.

Beartown

Beartown by Fredrik Backman     418 pages

The saga of a small town and the ripples that one action causes all unfold from the various viewpoints of the grownups and children in Beartown.

This is a deep story, iceberg deep. On the surface is the story of the Beartown hockey team. Below it are all the different stories, complex and intricately told, of the people and children who make up the town and the team. Watching the different story lines unfold is one of the beauties of Backman's writing. Every character has their own voice, their dreams and their fears, and together, each voice paints a picture of the town. It's sad and it's bleak, it's hopeful and it's full of love. 

If you're into realistic fiction, especially of the small-town variety, this book is for you. Even if you don't appreciate or know anything about hockey, Backman draws you in, because this is not just about a hockey town, it's about the people that make up this hockey town. I found it infinitely frustrating, yet valuable, to read each character's reactions to/handling of rape, from the parents on down to the children. It will break your heart, but in the end, it's important because this story is build on empathy. 

The writing is beautiful, heartbreaking, and so well done. Though it was painful to get through in some parts, in the end, I feel it was worth the struggle. I highly recommend it. I listened to the audiobook of this story, which was very well done, and I'd recommend it, too.

Big Little Lies

Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty     460 pages

Big Little Lies follows three women, each at a crossroads:   Madeline is a force to be reckoned with. She's funny and biting, passionate, she remembers everything and forgives no one. Celeste is the kind of beautiful woman who makes the world stop and stare. While she may seem a bit flustered at times, who wouldn't be, with those rambunctious twin boys? New to town, single mom Jane is so young that another mother mistakes her for the nanny. Jane is sad beyond her years and harbors secret doubts about her son. But why? While Madeline and Celeste soon take Jane under their wing, none of them realizes how the arrival of Jane and her inscrutable little boy will affect them all.

A well put together novel about the relationships connecting three Australian women. Moriarty is a master of characterization and plot development. The story unfolds slowly over time, the conflict taking shape amidst the past events leading up to a present-day murder that is only hinted at through snippets of interviews with all those present on the night of the murder. Slowly these jigsaw puzzle pieces fit together to reveal the big moment - the murder - and the aftermath.

I quite liked the suspense kept - it wasn't immediately obvious what would happen at the end. I also enjoyed getting to know each of the women and how little things about them were revealed in very small ways. They felt like real people. Their struggles also felt very real and their reactions very human. A lot of tough subject matter resides within this story - domestic abuse, rape, bullying, to name a few. I think the author handled these subjects well and they didn't feel like they were being used just as a plot device, but that they were things that needed to be included because the author was trying to relay real-life, silent, tragedies. The overall message seems to be that we need to remain vigilant in our fight against these tragedies, to pay attention, to ask the right questions and not to forget that these things happen anywhere and to anyone.

I don't really know too much about Australia, but this tight-knit community at Pirriwee seems like a very difficult place to be different. All the residents seem to be of the same type - minus their wealth. Every character seemed to be white with a nuclear family set up, very suburban. At times, it felt like another world, suspended in a bubble, but maybe that was due to the small-town nature of the community being portrayed. It didn't hinder my enjoyment of the story, but it did take away a little from the feeling of realness of the story.

Anyways, I'd highly recommend the book. It's a page-turner and it's so well executed. If you like suspense and mystery, it's a good one.

Hunger

Hunger: A Memoir of (my) Body by Roxane Gay     320 pages


From the New York Times best-selling author of Bad Feminist, a searingly honest memoir of food, weight, self-image, and learning how to feed your hunger while taking care of yourself.

This was a very insightful read for me. I learned a lot from Gay and I will definitely be reading her book, Bad Feminist, as I really enjoyed her writing style. She has a lot of really important things to say that need to be heard. 

As someone with a more average body type, I found it very helpful to read this book because it's important to get other perspectives. Gay really opened me up to her own thoughts and feelings about how she fits in the world or wants to fit in the world and how society as a whole looks at her and treats people like her. Reading this book was definitely an eye-opening experience.

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxanne Gay             Audiobook:  6 hours    Hardback book:  320 pages                          

Excellent book.   The deep emotional scars that Roxanne Gay opens and horrific moments in her life brought on by others inflicting pain and later by Roxanne’s own self-loathing and self-punishment.   Roxanne is of Haitian parentage and ancestry.   She grew up in America born of wealthy Haitian parents who are academics.  She never wanted for anything while home with her parents, the neighbors were all wealthy professionals whose children were thought to be good.   At 12 years of age, Roxanne fell in love with one of the “good boys” whose parents were considered society elite.   This good boy who stole Roxanne’s heart turned out to be cruel and sadistic and through her complete trust and devotion he coerced her into going with him to a private place in the woods where they could be alone, however, when they arrived at the place a bunch of his friends were waiting for them.   To her terror she found out her boyfriend set this all up with the other boys and in cahoots they held her down and gang-raped her.    This horror has affected her ever since though she has tried to come to terms with it and get past it.    In trying to deal with the memories she began to feel she had somehow brought it on and continued to have a relationship with the boy.   Though all of the boys told others at school what they had done everyone looked down on Roxanne calling her slut and worse.    She had no friends when she tried to reach out to other girls they would call her names and humiliate her.  She finally begged her father to send her to Exeter a prestigious private boarding school (and the most expensive private boarding school in the U.S.) so that she could start over where no  one knew her.   Life was tolerable for a while but she could not rid herself of the shame and began to eat to self-medicate to try to make the bad feelings and memories go away.    She gained 30 lbs. the first year there.   When she went home during the holidays her family freaked.   They tried to help her but also they criticized her and made fun of her for being what they considered so fat.   Their jibes did not stop her food bingeing.     Relationships came and went both male and female and her weight rose with every new criticism by friend, foe and family.    The more they made her feel bad about her weight the more she ate to make herself feel calmer.   She began to avoid going home and finally stopped going home all together though her parents continued to support her in school and for a time on her own until she disappeared because she could not take their criticisms anymore.    She dove into a pit of perversions with strangers, and taking chances with her life with sordid characters she met over the internet or on the street.   She would do anything to try to make the awful pain go away but it never did and she began to feel so low she let others degrade her because she thought it might purge her of her awfulness.    And her weight continued to rise.    Her story is such a brutal one but such an intense look into the psyche of a highly functioning yet broken human being.       Excellent portrait of bulimia and its underlying causes and how body image can blind the public to the person.   This is the most honest life story I have ever read.     Excellent book.             

Woman in Berlin

A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary by Anonymous, translated by Philip Boehm, 261 pages

A revision of entries from a diary kept by an anonymous female journalist living in Berlin from April 20 to June 22, 1945,  A Woman in Berlin is a story of loss, horror, and survival in a situation unimaginable only a few years earlier, although the author is only too aware that Berlin is experiencing at the hands of the Russians what other cities experienced at the hands of the Germans.  In this personal account of the climax of the long nightmare that lasted from 1914 until 1989, there are many such instances of what the author calls "a logical reversal" - ill-fed German POWs laboring where starving Russian POWs had before, the loot of Germany carted off to Russia by the trainload, swastika flags cut up to make red flags to salute the conquerors.  As the diary begins, it is poignantly revealed how Berliners have regressed to prehistoric conditions - without electricity, telephones, or running water, huddled together in cavernous basements, scrounging for food and water, with only rumors for news, aware only of the immediately neighboring communities living similarly troglodytic existences.  The terrible chaos of the fall of the city follows, and it is as horrible as might be imagined - a time when the bodies of suicides were hurriedly buried in backyard gardens, injured horses were butchered by hungry mobs while still alive, and the number of times a woman had been raped became a subject of her small talk over ersatz coffee.  This is gradually replaced by a seeming return to normalcy, but the author's own personal life reflects the fact that some things are forever changed, which leads into the story of the effect of the war and its aftermath on the German psyche, a story at which this book only hints.

Although, as a result of its narrow timeframe, it only hints at the aftereffects of the war, the book is itself a notable part of that story.  It was first published in 1954 in an English translation in the US, and only after five years was a German-language edition produced by a Swiss publisher.  Not surprisingly, it was criticized by many who would have preferred to forget what they had done and endured, and a controversy ensued in the course of which the identity of the author was revealed against her wishes.  The author requested that the book not be reprinted until after her death, which occurred in 2001, leading to it becoming available again after decades as a rarity.

Try Not to Breathe

Try Not to Breathe by Holly Seddon
368 Pages
Out February 2016


"Amy Stevenson was the biggest news story of 1995. Only fifteen years old, Amy disappeared walking home from school one day and was found in a coma three days later. Her attacker was never identified and her angelic face was plastered across every paper and nightly news segment.

Fifteen years later, Amy lies in the hospital, surrounded by 90’s Britpop posters, forgotten by the world until reporter Alex Dale stumbles across her while researching a routine story on vegetative patients.

Remembering Amy’s story like it was yesterday, she feels compelled to solve the long-cold case.

The only problem is, Alex is just as lost as Amy—her alcoholism has cost her everything including her marriage and her professional reputation.

In the hopes that finding Amy’s attacker will be her own salvation as well, Alex embarks on a dangerous investigation, suspecting someone close to Amy.

Told in the present by an increasingly fragile Alex and in dream-like flashbacks by Amy as she floats in a fog of memories, dreams, and music from 1995, Try Not to Breathe unfolds layer by layer to a breathtaking conclusion."

I liked how the narrative switched among the characters without losing the reader and maintains the mystery through at least half the book for me.