What is this about?: Jill wakes up in hospital to find out her friend is dead and she’s been accused of murder. The problem is she remembers nothing of the past six weeks of her life, or the accident that claimed her best friend’s life.
What else is this about?: Nothing else. Jill and her memory are more than enough for a plot
Stars: 3.5
Should you read: Oh yes, this is an unreliable narrator with an author that will leave you wondering by the end.
Blurb: A read about a teenage girl who wakes up in a hospital bed and cannot remember the last six weeks of her life, including the accident that killed her best friend–only what if the accident wasn’t an accident?
Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron wakes up in a hospital room, leg in a cast, stitches in her face and a big blank canvas where the last 6 weeks should be. She comes to discover she was involved in a fatal accident while on a school trip in Italy three days previous but was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident…wasn’t an accident. Wondering not just what happened but what she did, Jill tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.
Jill wakes up in a hospital with amnesia and missing six weeks of her life. Her divorced parents are at her side, her doctors are avoiding some of her questions and no one will let her contact her best friend, Simone. Slowly but surely, Jill finds out the entire story: she and Simone were in a car accident in Italy, where they both were on a school tripe. Jill was driving and Simone is dead, and Jill is the main suspect in something Italian police are considering a murder.
Jill is shell-shocked. She and Simone have been best friends since they were kids, and fought, laughed and cried over everything. But no matter what, they were always friends first. But, there is enough evidence from the accident for Jill to be a suspect.
Eileen Cook has woven a tale that is very much going to leave you wondering what is real and what is not; is what Jill remembers real or not? Interspersed with the chapters of the story are media — newspaper articles with comments, a Justice for Simone page that springs up with kids who claim they knew both Simone and Jill but never really did. Cook also includes interviews with people on the trip and in the end weaves a picture of what could be true and what could all be a big lie.
Add to this the lawyer and PR firm Jill’s parents hired to help her reputation in the media that was intent on vilifying her without knowing the truth, and I felt the truth was what people wanted it to be — whether it’s the friends that insist she and Simone were fighting or the facts people keep commenting about that show she must be guilty. It’s an interesting look at how the media and the internet makes it’s own villains or heroes.
Altogether these elements surround Jill as she tries to regain her memory. She knows she and Simone were best friends, no matter how much they argued and she holds fast to that as harsh truths she’s forgotten about the trip come to light. She is wrecked, confused and trying her best to get to the truth in any way she knows how.
Jill’s rehabilitation includes counselling sessions with a doctor that tries to help her regain her memories and deal with the reality that accident has left her in. And there’s Anna, who I thought might’ve been a reflection of Simone a bit, who is Jill’s roommate in rehab who helps Jill uncover some truths and explains some harsh ones to her as well. Her parents are not as present in the story as Anna is, and hover around the edges of the main plot as Jill tries to regain her memory.
Everything revolves around Jill and her memory and her voice in this book: she’s believable as someone caught up in the more popular Simone’s wake, Simone who happily laid blame on her for things to save her own skin, but who Jill could not stop being friends with. Simone was the Queen Bee, according to everyone who insisted they knew her, but to Jill she was more complicated than that. The problem is when she let Simone blame her for the alcohol and smokes her strict parents found in her wardrobe, Jill unintentionally gave herself a reputation. A photo of her in a revealing costume at Halloween is suddenly an indication of how much of a slut she is, when Simone was the one that convinced her to give the costume a try.
Then slowly, revelations come out about Jill herself and I found myself wondering … what if? They are introduced into the story at a measured pace, never getting more emphasis than the plots points that potentially point to her innocence. There are things we are sure we will never do, but there are situations when all good sense flies out the window and people do stupid, horrific and dangerous things. Jill is no different to anyone else in that regard, but you’ll still have to make up your mind about what to believe.
I have to admit there is one niggling point about this book I don’t know what to make of: that moment when Jill stops worrying about the truth and decides to make her own in the media and for the rest of her life is too small, too abrupt to work as well as it could’ve. But, maybe that’s the point? After all, what’s the truth is what we make.
What do you think of With Malice and unreliable narrators like this?
Hmm…seems interesting. I am curious about this one. It makes me think a little bit of Dangerous Girls, though that one didn’t deal with memory. It was just more the question of “who do you believe?”
-Lauren
I had to look up Dangerous Girls, and yeah, I can see why this would remind you of that. Here though, I think the author just plays with your perceptions of Jill and Simone in the best way.
Great review! I’m still dying to read this one. I just love an unreliable narrator.
It’s so good, SO GOOD. I hope you get a chance to read it soon! You made me want to give this a try!