With or Without You by Drew Davies

‘How long does a coma last?’ I ask.‘Days, weeks, months?’ the nurse replies with a shrug, although her eyes are very kind.

‘But on average?’
She just smiles, unable to give me an answer.

Wendy's life can be neatly divided into two: before and after.

Before her husband’s car accident, it was just the two of them. They never took the train at rush hour, and they avoided their noisy neighbour upstairs. Naveem devoted his spare time to vintage train models, and Wendy to re-reading the well-thumbed pages of her favourite books. It didn’t matter what others thought about their small, quiet life together – they were happy.

After the coma, Wendy barely recognises herself. When she’s not holding the love of her life’s hand, accompanied by the beep of the life-support machine, who is she? The nurse tells her to talk to Naveem – that he can still hear her – but she doesn’t have a single thing to say.

Suddenly Wendy can’t bear the silence. She needs something, anything, to talk to Naveem about. Suddenly she’s losing herself at fairgrounds packed with crowds and candyfloss, she’s at the airport, waiting for the whoosh of the planes as they take off, making friends with the neighbour she has spent over a decade avoiding.

Knowing that every breath her husband takes might be his last, Wendy has no choice but to try to carry on without him. Should she feel guilty about living while his life is on pause? And when – if – he wakes up, will he still love the woman she has become?

---

I was all set to talk, like a lot of reviewers, about this book starting in the middle. Because it did seem to, it started when her husband had already been in the coma for a while, when some other story elements had happened, so we were plunged into a story in progress with no background.

Then I realised that, for some reason, the Kindle version of this book opens at 35%. Because I don't usually have the indicators on when I read, I hadn't realised. Things did make a bit more sense when I went back and read that first section.

(I checked this on two devices and it was consistent on both.)

But now that I don't have that to talk about, I don't have much to talk about. Because this is a book where not much happens. I did like the small, loyal group of friends Wendy gathers as time goes on, but that's really about it. This is a book with lots of words, but they don't add up to a lot of action. I know that suits some people, but it didn't suit me.

Do try it if you're interested, just remember to check you're starting at the start!