Still Life by Joy Fielding is her newest book in a long line of bestsellers. I’ve been reading her novels for years and always enjoy them. This one started out slowly for me but then got going and I couldn’t put it down last night until I finished it.
Casey is a woman who has the world by the tail. She’s beautiful, rich, has her dream job and her dream man. So, her day starts as normally as always and she’s out having a nice lunch with her two best friends. She’s talking about wanting to start a family and she’s excited. She leaves to get on with her day and whammo! ~she gets hit in the parkade and worse the driver leaves her there for dead.
Sometime later Casey wakes up. She’s in the dark but she can hear things all around her-doctors, nurses, her friends, Warren-her husband. She’s talking to them but nobody is hearing her or answering her. What is going on? Listening in she learns she’s in a coma! So her days unfold with her wavering between hearing tv programs and thinking it’s real life to actually listening in on her family and friends when they visit. Eventually the hospital can do no more for her and her husband takes her home along with a nurse and a therapist. The doctors say that she could recover fully in time~they just don’t know.
The story takes off when Casey comes home. The police detective for her case visits. He’s not convinced that this wasn’t a deliberate act against Casey. Inside her mind, Casey is screaming~someone tried to kill me!!! But who? Ultimately that’s what it boils down too~who hates Casey enough to kill her? Listening in on the conversations around her Casey is caught in a terrifying ordeal of learning who wants her dead and not being able to do a thing about it.
I enjoyed this book although not as much as some of her other titles. Still it was a good read. As I said the beginning was slow for me but it did finally take off and I was hooked. It’s an interesting concept though. Just imagine yourself in a coma not being able to communicate yet hearing everything around you. Kind of scary if you ask me. This isn’t really one of those fast-paced thriller type books, but one that keeps you wondering just how it’s going to come to a conclusion. Something kind of light yet satisfying.
Thanks to blog, Peeking Between the Pages., April 2007 write-up.
