I can’t believe this is a debut. From the first chapter I was hooked and at times when I couldn’t read it was all I could think about. Meet Alex who has been in a coma for two years, doctors believe he is brain dead and unresponsive but Alex is aware of everything. An interesting concept and a total page turner.

Review is live on the blog and will show up on Goodreads sometime later.

In a Flutter: Heartbreaking
Fluttering Thoughts:
Worldbuilding: Bristol setting, though the real setting is Alex’s body, actually. Which might be one of the weirdest things I’ve ever wrote in this section, lol.
Characters: ALex is a 30yo guy – a reporter – with locked-in syndrome after a climbing accident. The idea of living like that for however long is terrifying, to be honest. It’s fascinating to get to know him as he recalls events of his life, though the wonky timeline is a bit annoying to me. But it helps empathize with Alex all the more. I liked him a lot, and my heart went out to him.
It was hard to decide what I thought about Bea. There was something a bit weird about her, and I had some suspicions and I Won’t tell you how that ended, mwahahaha!
Plot: The mystery being solved by the victim is pretty gripping. My suspect was the obvious one and I was wrong (which I rarely am). Good mystery about who pushed Alex. Also, I cried like hell at the end.
Writing: First person, past tense narrative. Loved the style and Alex’s voice.
Curb Appeal: Cool cover, very hooking blurb – impulsive buy material for my Mystery/Thriller needs.

I recommend If I Die Before I Wake to fans of out-of-the-box mysteries; but be advised, you need a strong heart, because this ending is heartbreaking. *sniffles*

Alex had a climbing accident and ended up in hospital on life support and nobody expects him to make it, it is just the decision of when to turn of the life support. Alex however is very definitely not brain dead and he can hear everything going on around him he just can't act on it. He almost wants to give up himself until he realises that the accident wasn't all it seems and others could be in danger but how can he communicate it to them!

A great book I loved the concept of the novel and it was really well written and definitely a page turner I will be looking out for other future work by this author

This highly original book is entirely told from the point of view of Alex who is in a 'vegetative state' after a climbing accident. He tells of how he became aware of flashing lights, the sound of machines and the fact he cannot move or speak.

Gradually he finds out that he was in a coma for well over a year and now he is trapped. Doctors seem to think that there is no brain activity- something Alex knows isn't correct. He pieces together what happened from the things his visitors tell him. His girlfriend Bea still visits most days, friend come regularly as do his father & sister. Opinion is divided as to whether Alex should be allowed to 'slip away'.

From the conversations he hears Alex realises that his fall was no accident. Can he work out what really happened before it's too late.

The details of Alex's day to day experiences are brilliantly conveyed. A story told by someone who cannot move, talk or communicate shouldn't be so gripping but Emily Koch grabs the reader and drags them into Alex's room. This is a book I'll be thinking of for a long time. Thanks to Netgalley & the publisher for letting me read & review this thought provoking book.

Absolutely loved this book! It’s really a thriller with a difference, that truly builds in tension to an end that’s surprising. I won’t forget this one!

For a book about a person trapped in their body in a coma this book manages to be immensely gripping and kept me reading stealing away my time. The end wasn't really what I expected but it was beautifully written and had a very clever plot.

brilliant concept. You can imagine yourself being a prisoner in you own body too. It's brought to life through powerful descriptions of people through the senses. Loved it!

I was intrigued by the blurb and the fact that Alex who is the narrator is in a coma after a climbing accident made me wonder how Emily Koch could keep the momentum going for the whole book but I admit she did it very well.
Alex is aware of his surroundings and his visitors but he isn't able to let them or his doctors know he is awake. He cannot remember the accident so he is hoping that his visitors will shine a light on that for him in their discussions. His girlfriend Bea is at his bedside most of the time and he tries so hard to move a little to get her or anyones attention but it seems he is stuck in this no mans land and wonders if it would be better if he died but then he hears something about his accident that makes him want to live as he needs to warn Bea.
This book takes you through all the emotions I laughed, cried and shouted out loud at times and if this is Emily's debut I can't wait to read more books by her.

This was a genuine struggle for me. Solving a crime from within a coma is an intriguing idea for a thriller, but it's really difficult to connect with such a passive protagonist. There were far too many conveniently overheard conversations and clumsily forced clues. Sadly the blurb is more gripping than the book itself.

A fantastic, unique concept for a novel - written from the perspective of a comatose patient, who can hear everything going on around them. This innovative conceit is handled superbly - you totally empathise with the character & his frustrations at being 'locked in', but at the same time you are given plenty of juicy, intriguing details from what he overhears & his memories, enough to keep the mystery (how he ended up in this state) ticking along in a genuinely gripping way. I was racing towards the end, which in the end had me pretty heartbroken. Great thriller.

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.)

I am so conflicted about this book! Torn in two!
The first part of me thinks "WOW! What an interesting and original idea for a story! Brilliant!" However, the other part of me was severely underwhelmed by it.

After a rock climbing accident, Alex is in a hospital bed, unable to move or talk, or do anything at all except think, listen, and feel the world around him. Everyone thinks he is in a coma, with no brain activity. Can he make them see that he is awake? Before the person who caused his "accident" goes after the people he loves?

A big issue I had was a medical one. Being a nurse, I find it really difficult to read about medical stuff in novels. And in this one I just found it so completely difficult to believe that he could be having all these emotional responses, neurological RESPONSES to the world around him and his thoughts, that he didn't show any sign of. Nothing.. Yada.. Zilch.. No increased heart rate, no increased respiratory rate at the stressful stuff, and NOTHING AT ALL on the MRI... He would cry his eyes out, but NOTHING on the MRI...
"It's fiction Mel!!" I can hear you yelling at me! Yes I know! But it was just too much for me. Apparently he could smell peoples aftershaves, flowers and food even though there was no air coming in from his nose because he had a tracheostomy. Yes, some air may be able to get through, depending on the tube, sure! But to describe in meticulous detail the scents that he was experiencing? Nope I just can’t believe it. Thankfully, the average person is not medically trained so would most probably appreciate this aspect a lot more than I did. It wasn't all bad in the medical department at all, a lot of it was very accurate. I just notice everything.

One thing that others may agree with, is that it just went really slowly. There were parts that I struggled to get through just because it was moving so slowly. It was obviously a challenge, a novel in the mind of one so severely limited character, without resorting to story telling all in flashbacks. So points for that, but it just didn't hit the mark for me.

I enjoyed the twist, I didn't see it coming. I really liked the characters, even though character development of everyone except the main two characters was severely limited considering he couldn't even talk to them.

And it was just such an original idea! I haven't read anything like it, well maybe the lovely bones, but that character was obviously dead and was very different.
So I absolutely didn't hate it. But I didn't love it.

Would I recommend If I Die Before I Wake?
I think thriller fans and fans of original ideas will appreciate the different premise for this book, and those who are not so picky with the medical aspects of books will surely appreciate it more than I.

Big thanks to Netgalley for a copy of If I Die Before I Wake to review.

Alex is in a coma....throughout the book the underlying thought for me is whether we will come out of the coma...but the story is much than this....did someone try to kill him, is his girlfriend in danger...can he protect those people he loves...and will he wake up from his coma. A brilliant, tense book that I would recommend anyone reads.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I don't often do this but I am afraid that I had to admit defeat on this one. I was a third into the book and I was so bored. I felt I had given it enough of a chance to get going. Admittedly, I feel the way this book was written was pretty challenging and any writer would find it difficult keeping every reader on the edge of their seat when you're writing from the perspective of a comatose person...!

Thanks again, but I didn't feel it would be fair to review this on any platform. It simply didn't work for me.

I loved the pace of this crime thriller, It's not your ordinary crime book. Lots of thrills, twists turns and mystery. It will keep you on your toes!

I received this book as an Netgally ARC for review from Vintage, and I was pretty darn excited to get stuck into such a unique concept.

I loved the premise of this book! It's so original and interesting that the blurb caught my attention immediately, I couldn't imagine how Koch was going to make this work and I was so excited to get started. This book though, unfortunately, wasn't for me and I'm going to try my best to tell you why.

If I Die Before I Wake is so well written and is all told from the perspective of Alex, a coma patient, who cannot move and only sees in blurry images; this nightmare world Alex is living in is so well constructed, as he listens to his family decide whether to let him go. It's heart wrenching watching him struggle with being so helpless, you follow his daily struggles alongside the mystery.

Koch deals with Alex's situation incredibly well and you really feel like you understand his plight! the other characters interactions with Alex are so well thought out, they highlight his frustration with his situation and his inability to protect the ones he cares about. The actual mystery is also very well done, although it is a little slow and there's not much action due to the whole coma thing, and it feels as though your watching the situation unfold rather than being a part of it.

Honestly I think the pacing was the problem for me, it's slow going but I do think it has to be when everything happens in one room.  I think if there'd been a different POV, maybe Bea's, it would have picked up the pace a little and I would have enjoyed it more. I constantly felt like I was missing something, characters would only talk about so much in front of Alex and it left me wanting more. I think this just wore a little thin for me, and I found myself taking a breaks to read other books because I just wasn't enjoying it as much.

This whole novel was a fantastic concept and it's incredibly well executed, but unfortunately I think it just wasn't my cup of tea. It's a shame because I loved the concept and the novel is really well written, but this book just wasn't for me.

Recommend: If you would love to get your hands on of the most unusual mysteries I've ever read then yes.

Stars:  ★★★

This was an intriguing concept, of a story told from the perspective of a narrator who's paralysed and bed bound, in a coma as far as everyone else knows. He can't see or move, but he can feel and hear. Of course, it's also a horrifying prospect, especially being in pain and not being able to say.
Even though there's a slight suspension of disbelief required -- after all, isn't it terribly convenient that all significant conversations are had at Alex's bedside? -- it was an enjoyable story. I found some parts slow, and the twist probably came a bit too early, but Alex's fear and helplessness were palpable, and those were what drove the story forward. Without giving anything away, I also liked how it ended.

Wow, brilliant. Alex keeps us on the edge of our seats, solving his ‘accident ‘.

How is this Emily Koch’s debut? How!?!?! If I Die Before I Wake is something so different and thought provoking alongside an intriguing mystery to solve.

I really felt for Alex. I can’t imagine how frustrating it is to have to listen conversations about you and in some cases at you with no right to respond or react. And these conversations alongside Alex’s thoughts gradually drop pieces of a jigsaw to reveal who tried to kill Alex.

I don’t know if this is what it is like to be in a coma; thankfully I’ve never been in a position where I’ve been in a coma. But the author definitely gave me a perspective of what it could be like and it’s quite a frightening one when you think that there are your nearest and dearest having to such hard decisions around medical support. I was willing Alex to give the doctors an indication he was still in there.

This is a chilling read. The only perspective you have is Alex’s and for the majority of the story, he doesn’t interact with the other characters. I was desperate to find out who had caused Alex to be there in the hospital bed.

Emily Koch is on my list of authors to watch if this debut novel is anything to go by.

A really interesting book and written from a perspective i hadn't read before - it took a little while for me to understand Alex's position but it was a really addict read.