Good fast paced storyline. Twists to keep the reader interested. Different first person perspective to story

What an absorbing book, I read it voraciously. I was hooked from the start, especially as I know the area it references and my husband is a (now retired) rock climber. I felt frustration for Alex and fondness for Bea and I think this is what kept me involved. I passed this onto my husband after I had read it and he loved it too. I can't wait to read more from Emily Koch.

Firstly thank yoi to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.
This is a unique story told from the point of view of a man, Alex, in a vegatitive state.
It is essentially about how he came to be in a vegatative state and who caused it.
The story is well written, the characters quite likeable and the description is very in depth.
I enjoyed reading it as it is different to anything I have read before. A unique twist on a thriller/mystery tale.
I would definitely recommend this book to friends and family.

If I Die Before I Wake was a great book, I was hooked from the first few pages.
This is Alex’s story.......
He is in a coma, a vegetative state but he’s come round, only problem is he can’t communicate to let others know he’s back.
Can he solve the mystery of his accident before it’s too late?
A fab book which I enjoyed every minute of.

Imagine being aware of everything that is going on around you, but being trapped inside your body, unable to move or respond in any way. Imagine being able to hear, think and feel - both physically and emotionally - but everyone around you thinks that you are just an empty vessel. This is the situation Alex finds himself in following a climbing accident. Or was it an accident? The story unfolds, told entirely from Alex's point of view. Alex's greatest wish is to discover exactly what happened to him and to protect those he loves. His exhausting attempts to demonstrate his inner awareness and to prove his will to live are heart wrenching and leave the reader emotionally drained. This is a uniquely put together novel which is thoroughly gripping. Highly recommended. Thanks to Random House UK, Vintage Publishing, Harvill Secker and NetGalley for the ARC.

If I Die Before I Wake – A Good Debut Thriller

Emily Koch is an award-winning journalist and a graduate of the fabulous creative writing course at Bath Spa, has written a debut thriller that will keep you enthralled. If I Die Before I Awake, should not work, but it does in so many ways, and will keep the reader gripped throughout.

Alex is in a coma, and there are doubts he will ever come out of it, he is surrounded by the machinery that is keeping him alive. His girlfriend, Bea, his family and friends visit often and have done so for the eighteen months or, so he has been in a coma. What they and the medical staff do not realise he can hear every word that is being said, he can see the outline of bodies and more importantly he can feel everything.

Alex is our narrator as he describes his life before and after a climbing fall, a mere accident so he believes. What he cannot remember is the moment of the fall while climbing that is just a blank. His climbing partner was below him so knows absolutely nothing about what went on to cause the fall.

While Alex is locked in within his body he tries to put together what actually happened and whether it was an accident, or someone tried to murder him. He tries his hardest to survive and give indications that he is still fighting to live, but the scans and other tests show nothing is happening. The hospital is preparing the family for switching his life support machine off, but that spurs Alex on to find out who tried to kill him.

As Alex lies in the bed listening to what everyone is saying around him he is trying to work out the hardest puzzle of his life. Will he be able to solve it, and will he be able to show everyone he has the will to live by fighting to get out of the coma.

A good debut thriller that will keep you hooked from beginning to end.

A wonderful debut. Alex is narrating - in his mind at least. He's in a coma and deemed by the doctors to be in a persistent vegetative state following a climbing accident. He swings between hopelessness, desperate for his family to let him go and franticly begging for someone to notice that he is aware. I loved the nod to progressive techniology as an fMRI scanner is used to assess Alex's ability to communicate with the outside world. For the time being all Alex can do is listen to the fleeting conversations of his visitor and remember times past. As time ticks by it becomes clear that the police are interested in Alex's case - very interested in fact in his fall that may not have been an accident after all.

This is such a gripping book - I was so annoyed when life interefered with my reading time. Koch writes in a way that makes the reader care deeply for Alex, I was definitely cheering him on from the sidelines. By the time the book ended and Alex had solved the mystery of what happened that day I was a wrung out reading wreak. A brave book with a thrilling story brilliantly told. Highly recommended and gets 5/5 stars from me.

If I Die Before I Wake is a captivating debut and ultimately an extremely compelling read although, for me, was a book of (almost) two halves.

The first part of the book is much more steady and lays the groundwork, letting you get to know Alex, his background and his unique situation, while dropping hints of the puzzles to come. The second part felt much faster paced and has more of a ‘traditional’ mystery feel, with plenty of clues and revelations and twists and turns.

“Looking back, I can see that this was the point when things changed. From then on, it wasn’t just me who was in trouble”

Alex’s descriptions of his day-to-day existence and his condition, feelings and frustrations are all very evocative and I regularly found myself shifting in my seat, flexing my fingers and scratching imaginary itches in sympathy for his plight. Variously, poor Alex made me want to jump in a refreshing shower, down a pint of water and throw open a window for some fresh air!

Despite not being able to move or to see, Emily Koch makes Alex uses his other senses to paint extremely vivid pictures of the sights, smells and sounds in his hospital room and beyond. His visitors and his doctors and nurses are brought clearly to life and I could totally picture his room, as well as him in his life before his accident.

“I listened as she went on, letting her words take me away from my discomfort as I lay on the unforgiving bed frame. Her descriptions made me feel hungry and brought my grey world to life. I loved it when she did this – talked about what she saw…She somehow knew what I needed. I clung to her descriptions and fleshed them out”

Listening to Alex’s memories and regrets is in turn both heart-breaking and amusing – I loved the section about him recording his own radio show, as I did the very same thing as a child. His descriptions of his successful climbing experiences, his memories of his mum and his trip to Canada, his recollections of time spent with Bea are all very moving. Despite his awful situation, his narration is also often wry and deadpan.

“A huge storm raged outside my window, dulling the sound of ambulances coming and going. Rain drove in at the glass –waves of pitter-patters blown in by the wind, as if someone was turning the volume dial up and down every few seconds. it was only interrupted by several minutes’ worth of hail so noisy that i entertained the possibility that we were, in fact, under machine gun fire”

Throughout the book, Alex’s relationship with his friends, family and acquaintances are all examined through the prism of his newly incapacitated situation and his fractured memories force him to consider who he can really trust or rely on.

The final 25% of the book really ramps up the pace and the conclusion is surprising and satisfying. I could barely keep up with the last few pages as it was so emotional and I feel a bit bereft now it’s finished.

This unique and original story really makes you appreciate that life is for living and it will stay with me for a long time to come. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage Publishing Harvill Secker for the ARC of If I Die Before I Wake.

A who-dunnit story with a difference; told completely from the perspective of Alex who is trapped within his own body and with only the ability to speak to himself inside his own head trying to piece together the clues from the snippets of conversations he can hear and from his own fragmented memory as to how he got where he is.

This was an intriguing read and I really enjoyed that it was told from Alex's point of view - the sense of complete frustration and, at times, desolation at being completely helpless - was excellent and, at times, heart-breaking. I imagine it was extremely difficult to write and it must have taken great restraint not to introduce other concepts or parts of the story that may have helped to move it on but would have reduced the impact of Alex's situation.

This is a very original psychological mystery told in a unique way and I did feel constant anticipation that something was going to happen but, unfortunately, it never really seemed to ... well not until the end that is. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it; it's a good book with great characters and I can't fault the writing style, the flow or the concept, but it just left me with a sense of "is that it?" when I finished when I feel it could have been a fantastic book.

Overall though, this is an accomplished debut novel for the author so if this book is anything to go by, I await the next with eager anticipation.

"If I die before I wake" is Emily Koch's debut novel, but you would never have guessed that just from reading it. What a debut! There are few books that leave me so obsessed with them that I have to keep reading through the night, until I've flicked the last page, read the very last word.

Genre-wise, this is both a love story and a thriller. Do not however expect it to have a happy ending, as love stories do; rather, it borrows its ending from the thriller convention: there is a death, which everybody thinks must have been an accident, but turns out to be a murder.

So far so good. Only, it's just that the victim, Alex, is not exactly dead, not in the usual sense of the word: he is in a persistent vegetative state, supposedly unable to perceive or relate to his surrounding reality. In fact, Alex has developed Locked-In Syndrome as a consequence of the brain damage suffered during his "accident", and all he can do is lie helplessly on his special bed and listen, powerless, to the conversations his nurses and medical staff, visiting friends, girlfriend and family have around him.

His outlook on life is grim; test after test fails to show any significant brain activity, and Alex wishes he were simply allowed to die. However, as he puts bits and pieces of all the conversations he overhears together, he begins to suspect his accident might not have been an accident after all, and starts obsessing about solving his own murder and protecting his girlfriend before he dies (or before his machines are switched off).

And that is something that he in the end does, in his own mind, finally making him ready for the end he knows is coming. His girlfriend has stood by him for two years, but even she has begun to have doubts, and embarks on a hasty relationship that leaves her feeling and acting as if she is being unfaithful to Alex, having an affair behind his back. She is the last obstacle to his life support being switched off. But now she's told him that she's ready to let go of him and move on with her life.

I loved reading this novel. It is rather accomplished, and forces us to ponder such questions as the nature of life and death -- are you really alive if you're in a coma? -- as well as the validity and elasticity of our conceptions -- and preconceptions and misconceptions -- about euthanasia, and where it stands when considered against murder.

You'll end up, probably, as I did, brooding over concepts of lawful and unlawful killing, and how tenuous sometimes the distinction between the two might become: if the family had known of the Locked-in Syndrome diagnosis, would they have switched the life support machines off? And if they hadn't, would it have been a good or a bad deed? Was it a good deed to switch them off at all?

And is the doctor who guided the family towards the decision of withdrawing life support from Alex, but shadowed over the fact of the Locked-in Syndrome, guilty of murder, or did he do a 'good deed', a thing well done??

But if Alex was not alive in the full sense of the word, then switching his life support off was just that, not euthanasia, not lawful killing: letting Alex free to sink or swim while knowing full well he would be drowning.

The descriptive tags I chose for this book were #sad, #heart-wrenching, #touching, #thought-provoking, #beautiful, #unique, #original, #compelling, #thrilling, #gripping, #accomplished, #unmissable

Genre pegging: General Fiction (Adult), Mystery & Thrillers
Verdict: strongly recommended
Rating: ♥♥♥♥♥
Shelves: my favourite books; this month's best;

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Alex is in a coma after a climbing accident and, although he is unable to move at all, he is fully aware of everything that is happening around him.
As various people visit Alex, including his girlfriend and family he realises two things . The first is that his fall was no accident and the second is that he does not have much time left to solve the crime,
I really enjoyed this novel and was fascinated as the mystery began to unravel. The book did seem to get off to a slow start but this was only because of the limited experiences that the narrator was having., which made it difficult for the story to be more fast paced. Overall, a very unusual and captivating read.

It has a very interesting blurb, and I was expecting a really suspenseful thriller, but it didn’t really impress me.

The main character of this book is Alex, climbing enthusiast who gets paralyzed after climbing accident (or maybe an attempted murder…) He doesn’t remember how the incident happened, and he hears snippets of it and other information with every new visitor. What left me shook and baffled was the situation he was in. His brain was fully functioning but the body didn’t whatsoever. All his inconveniences, cramps, feelings were very painful to read about and really scary, to be honest. You can’t even scratch your itching nose, it is a mental torture! :S

The characters used in this book were not very interesting to me. I did like reading Alex’s story, but I was missing personality and character in other participants of this journey. The whole book was told from Alex’s perspective, and I would have liked to read other people’s perspectives as well. I don’t think other characters were fully utilized in this novel.

I liked that Koch used little snippets of new information in every chapter to kindle the interest to continue, but I didn’t feel tension while reading, and I think it needed some better twists. The dilemma of “To live or to die?”, raised in this book was really difficult and got me thinking, what I would like in such case.

The writing style of this novel was really creative, pleasant and easy to read. The chapters were pretty short and filled with some interesting details of not only Alex’s present but also with memories of his past and his dead mother. All this combination made this book quite an amusing book. After all the suffering and pain, the ending didn’t leave me satisfied as well…:( So to conclude, this novel was really an emotionally difficult journey for me, filled with pain, suffering and helplessness, where you have to choose between death and living. There were some interesting parts which I enjoyed, but it didn’t really work for me. I do hope you will give this book a chance and see for yourself, whether you like it or not. Enjoy 🙂

The author, Emily Koch obviously has researched this topic at great depths.
I liked the main character Alex and his friend Tom very much.
When we got to the nitty gritty it was really interesting. I was intrigued with the main part of the plot with Alex being in a coma. I had to laugh several times with the nurse's comments.
Thanks to NetGalley, Emily Koch and Random House for the opportunity to read and review this book.

When Alex wakes up in hospital, he finds himself locked-in in his body. His mind is absolutely clear, but he cannot communicate with his surroundings; neither can he move his body the least bit, nor can he show the doctors or his family that he is not in a coma. It takes some time for him to figure out what actually happened. Since he cannot ask, he has to rely on what his visitors share with him. First of all, his girlfriend Bea, but also his father and his sister. He obviously was climbing when he fell from the rock. Since is never wore a helmet, the impact left a serious damage to his brain. But slowly he comes to the conclusion that the different pieces of information he gathers while listening do not really fit together. There must be more about it.

Emily Koch surely has chosen a very special point of view for her novel. Giving a voice to a locked-in character is something you do not read that often. Yet, it made the story especially appealing since you as the reader were completely with Alex and had no chance of getting more information than the protagonist. Not all you learnt made sense, at times, you even suspected the girlfriend of having tried to murder him – just like Alex did. Thus, the choice the author has made is simply great and adds a special bit to the story.

It was an attempted murder, this becomes clear quite early in the novel, yet, it takes some time to really understand what was behind it all. The limited access to information really supports the suspense here. At some points I got a bit annoyed, wishing it all to advance a bit more quickly. However, imagining this as a real life event, there is nothing one could do to accelerate it, so even though I was curious to get to the solution, it was a good decision to delay it.

A risky point of view which I find quite innovative. The plot was solved convincingly and the author found a way out of the story that I absolutely liked.

Alex  Jackson is a 27 year old journalist from Bristol, he loves rock climbing and as we first meet him, he is a prisoner in his own body following a climbing accident.
The story is told from Alex's perspective, and the first thing we find out is that although
his medical team believe he is in a vegetative state and completely unaware of anything around him, Alex is actually suffering from locked-in syndrome - aware of everything going on around him, but unable to move or respond in any way. He's been like this for around 2 years - he's measuring time by listening to the conversations going on around him from his Dad, his sister Philippa, his girlfriend Bea and his care team, amongst others.
 
When the story starts, Alex has, understandably, given up hope and is wishing for death. As he hears snippets of various conversations around him, he realises that his accident is being reinvestigated, as a possible murder attempt. This sets him thinking - after all, he can't do anything else, and he starts to try and work out who could be behind this - who would want him dead? He can also hear conversations about turning off his life support, which is the stuff that horror movies are made of and made me shiver to think about.
 
I found this book extremely engaging and found it very hard to put down. It is the thing of nightmares to be trapped in your own body, unable to communicate, and this is conveyed very well in Emily Koch's debut thriller. Full of tension, twists and turns, and genuine frustration for Alex not being able to do anything about his suspicions, it's a must-read for 2018 and is sure to be a massive hit!

If I die before I wake was an intriguing title and that's what had drawn me to the book to begin with. It got me thinking what does it mean? Alex is in a coma after been out climbing and throughout the book he has more questions than answers. As a reader we get to find out what happened to Alex and how he ended up in a coma. This was the first time I've read a book about someone trying to work out whether what happened to them was an accident or whether they were murdered. It was an interesting concept and I did want to know what happened but for me it lacked actions and was slow build up. I liked Alex and I warmed to him straight away, I liked his friend Tom and would of liked to hear more from him bug the other characters I couldn't warm to. I'm looking forward to seeing what Emily does next.

Thanks goes to net galley and the publishers for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was given an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and independent review.
A thought provoking book with a refreshing and novel approach to the telling of a story. The narrator Alex is in a coma following a climbing incident, aware of what is going on around him. I found it a bit hard work in places mainly due to the pace but overall it was a good thriller, with a slow drip feed of information and clues being revealed.
4 Stars

If I Die Before I wake is a psychological thriller, but don't be fooled this isn't one of your garden variety psychological thrillers, this book has so much more to offer the reader and made for such a compelling read. In fact I would go as far as to say it's got to be one of the best psychological thrillers I've read in a long time, and I have a feeling this book is going to be HUGE. If I Die Before I Wake is an impressive debut from Emily Koch and when I read a novel that stirs up so many emotions, sympathy, anxiety, and deep sadness to name but a few, then the author has done their job well in my book.

If I Die Before I Wake is a narrative delivered entirely from the perspective of 27 year old Alex Jackson, what makes this an unusual read is the fact Alex is in a coma after a climbing accident. The medical staff, family, friends and his girlfriend are coming to the conclusion that there is no hope for Alex, but in the deep recess of Alex’s brain he is able to hear what is going on around him. Although Alex is not able communicate his thought of feelings to anyone in his “locked in” condition, he share his thoughts, concerns and fears with the reader. Emily Koch has described Alex condition with great thought and consideration, Alex distress and frustration at his situation give the reader a sense of urgency, you want him to find the answers to his suspicious accident before time runs out.


All the characters in this novel are depicted through Alex’s eyes and I found myself wary of most of them at some point, but you also get a sense of family values, friendships and love as he reveals more details about those closest to him. This is not a fast paced book by any means, but if you love a book that builds on the suspense and finds you desperate to reach the conclusion just because you have no idea where the author is leading you then this is the book for you.

An intriguing and captivating read that I would highly recommend

Alex, lying in bed with a tracheotomy helping him to breathe and a pipe going into his stomach to feed him, has woken up after a long spell of being comatose. He is disoriented and cannot understand how or why or even where he is and it takes some time for him to realise that he is in a hospital bed connected to all these pipes because; “Alex Jackson, twenty-seven, is believed to have fallen twenty metres when he was out climbing with friends on Saturday morning”. What is not clear for him at the beginning of this “awakening” is that he can understand everything that is going on around him, but unfortunately, he cannot communicate. Nothing works; he tries to open his eyes, but even these will not respond to the command he’s sending them.

How did this super-fit young man with his whole life ahead of him land up in this situation? He hears the police come in and discuss his case with the doctors and nurses so realises that it was not an accident, but something quite more sinister. He was pushed off the ledge just as he reached what should have been that last minute of triumph.

The doctors consider Alex to be in a vegetative state and so nobody realises that he can hear what is being said in front of him and it is this that sets him off on the task, using his journalistic training to work out who wants him dead and more importantly, why they want him dead.

Visualise being an individual with locked-in syndrome, fully alert and aware of your environment, trying to ascertain who it is who wants you dead., Could it be your angry girlfriend who has discovered “that letter” you thought you had hidden away so carefully? Or your climbing buddy, Eleanor, who thinks that because you are unconscious, that she can use the opportunity to confess that she had a crush on you. Or is it someone from your past? Or someone who didn’t like what you’d written about them in an article for the newspaper you worked for? However, you know that the only two people who you can really trust are your father and sister, Philippa, who no matter how hard you try, cannot understand that you are very much aware of your surroundings and while trying to work out who tried to kill you, hear them discussing turning off all means of support if you contract pneumonia again.

One of the cleverest book storylines ever! I had to read way into the night because I knew there was no way that I could sleep until I had reached the last words that come in the brilliant explosive finale.

Treebeard

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK for an ARC of this book!

If I Die Before I Wake is the debut novel of Emily Koch, and it's pretty good for a debut. It has a very interesting storyline told from a (sort-of) unique perspective. What's really remarkable about it, though, is that it isn't easy to create a 320-pages long book when you're writing the entire thing from the perspective of someone in a vegetative state who can do nothing but listen, think, and occasionally feel. And yet, Koch manages to spin a page-turning tale that doesn't get boring at any point.

The story itself is quite good. It addresses a gamut of very real, raw human emotions and thoughts, and makes it quite easy to associate with the characters. The suspense, twists, and turns are also well done, definitely managing to evoke a good amount of surprise. Alex's feelings, struggle, and emotions come across especially well. As one of those "if you woke up in a coffin" type of situations, it is quite disturbing. But I did think that it could have been executed even better because, to be honest, his outlook and emotions seemed a little too calm to me. The feeling of being trapped in your body, unable to move while your mind is screaming at you to do something (to the point where you hallucinate that you're actually doing it only to find out you hallucinated that too) is much more terrifying than the story depicted. And it probably would have had much more reading value if it had gone that extra bit on what Alex really felt.

What brought the rating of the book down for me was the first half and the end. The first half tends to jump a lot between different events of the past. While a little ambiguity in the order was the aim (I think), it just got a little too messy to be easily followed. The second half really picks up though and was good enough to compensate for the first. Until the few pages at the end.

A story of this type is meant to be a little abstract in its delivery, I suppose. That's part of its beauty, and can really make for a great read that evokes crazy amounts of varied emotions. But that kind of chaotic order is also very difficult to achieve. That's where If I Die Before I Wake was lacking. It was abstract and even hit the right emotional chords. But it did so with very little conviction. As a result, the book (that was probably meant to leave you in thinking about it for a long time) ended without much impact.

All in all, If I Die Before I Wake is definitely worth a read. I won't say that the author will make my watch-list. But she definitely has a style and genre choice that I would opt for and enjoy (once the chaos has a little more order). In the meanwhile, I'd recommend readers to give Emily Koch's debut novel a shot, especially if you:
- enjoy slightly obscure literature
- like fiction and want to experiment with new styles
- are interested in crime fiction