SOMETIMES I LIE by Alice Feeney

With a title like this, we at least know to expect the narrator to be unreliable, especially since she is in a coma for most of the novel.  Amber Reynolds can hear everything that is happening in her hospital room but cannot respond.  She hears her husband Paul, her sister Claire, her parents, and the assorted medical staff.  She also flashes back to a few days before her accident, and her ruminations are interspersed with childhood diary entries.  The closer we get to the ending, the more convoluted and confusing the story becomes, especially with regard to who did what.  The author cunningly leads us down the wrong path, although I have to say that it’s a path that a wary reader could have avoided.  All I can say is that if you take everything at face value, you will be deceived, but having been duped just made the twist that much more delicious for me.  Is Amber as naughty as she appears to be?  If so, why does her husband seem to be trying to protect her?  Some aspects of what really happens are hard to wrap your mind around, after having been led so far astray, but these twists are what make the book special.  Certainly the plot is outrageous and unbelievable, but this book is tops in the mindless psychological thriller department.  Actually, it’s not all that mindless, as some reviewers have complained that they didn’t understand what happened.  I will say that an artifact inexplicably turns up at the very end, and I didn’t get that at all, but I think the author was just trying to throw us one last curve.  A re-reading may be in order.