More Tragic if i stay. Probably the singular best way to describe this book is to take a fairly well known book/ movie that has a very similar overall narrative structure – if i stay – and point out that this is a survival tale that is even more tragic than that tale. Going into this blind, I thought from the prologue that something would happen to a particular character (and that this tale would thus become more similar to Catherine McKenzie’s I’ll Never Tell), but the expected tragedy strikes an unexpected character instead. The rest of the book is then a tale about the fight to survive the tragedy, both in the immediate physical fight to live and in the aftermath of dealing with the consequences of that fight. Overall a very powerful, very raw, look at human nature and just what happens in the face of true imminent peril. One made even more powerful by the afterword, where the author reveals a stunningly tragic episode from her real life. Very much recommended.
This review of In An Instant by Suzanne Redfearn was originally written on February 17, 2020.
