Holly Seddon is best known for her debut novel Try Not to Breathe, which I very much enjoyed (giving it four stars), though I note I also gave her second book, Don’t Close Your Eyes, four stars as well. So, Seddon is consistent. As am I, though realise my role here is far easier than the months/years Seddon would have toiled over these books!
I read and reviewed Holly Seddon’s debut novel, Try Not To Breathe last year and rated it 4-stars (a very good rating from me). On discovering this book I chuckled to myself over her fetish for titles featuring warnings though and wondered what the next book might be called…
Seddon offered up a flawed lead (or two, kinda) in her first book and does the same this time around, with (non-identical) twins Sarah and Robin whose lives we follow in the present and the past.
Flawed narrators or lead characters are becoming a bit of a thing. It’s risky as there’s a fine line to balance between a character having the odd foible or two and being thoroughly unlikable and turning readers away.
Fortunately Holly Seddon’s hard-drinking Alex in Try Not to Breathe falls into the former. She’s brutally honest about her shortcomings and because we’re very much inside her head we get to know her intimately and it’s difficult not to like her.
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