Nancy Lee (5)

NOTE: I won a free eBook copy of this book in MOBI format from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers (June 2020).

I am still in disbelief that this was a memoir and not a "novel," because it read like the latter. The book proper opens in medias res, and readers are left to decipher what happened along with the narrator. The flashbacks between the hospital scenes and the years of the author's marriage work to keep the reader in suspense. As the truth is revealed, the story grows a bit more surreal. show more Lee's memoir of abuse details the sacrifices that many women make in their lives and the mixed results that occur when they take to overcome them. show less

After a brief introduction, where we learn that the lead character once had her palm read and was told, "maybe you die," we jump into the present when the protagonist has arrived at a hospital suffering from terrible injuries (she refers to the cause as "an accident") that she is convinced will kill her. As she drifts into sleep, she also drifts back in time to the first year of her marriage, wondering when everything went wrong. As she spends several days in the hospital recovering from her show more injuries, each day she remembers the next year in her marriage and relays how her life progressed. This powerful technique slowly reveals the truth behind her injuries, and allows her to find her inner strength to move past her trauma. Realising that this book is the true story of the author and that she actually lived the whole experience was amazing and I am blown away by what she survived. show less

I enjoyed the way this novel was structured. Spending one chapter on the present with the protagonist in the hospital and the next chapter in the past reliving her marriage was very effective.
However, this story could have used an extra set of eyes to go through and catch the many typos present. Mostly they are innocuous and easy to read around but they also just slow the story down with the confusion caused.
I also didn't enjoy the way the story was wrapped up with the protagonist moving show more on to a new possible relationship. I felt like not enough time was spent focusing on her healing from her trauma, I imagine this mostly happens off screen as she does seem very happy in the end but I would have liked to read more of it as this is what the novel is centered around. show less

I won't give any spoilers, because this is such a terrifically unexpected book. Nothing May You Die is predictable. It's a wonderfully developed books with characters that have
really detailed personalities. It was one of the best books in a long time. Not a light happy book, yet not depressing, just a very mysterious and good plot. Great writing!