This was a fascinating peek into the mind of a man on the brink of ending it all. Sometimes life just becomes so overwhelming that you can't think of a way through, except out (permanently). Tom is standing at the brink of making that decision, and Butler did an excellent job of bringing Tom to life, drawing the reader into his life. Although at times difficult to read because of the things covered, this is nonetheless a captivating story of darkness and the light of hope.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC of this book. This was a very good book and I plan to read the others.

This book intrigued me from the start. I wanted to know what the voices were, where they were going to lead Tom to. The relationship between Tom and his mother also intruged me. As a mother, I want the best for my children - but I’ve never tried to control them and their life and don’t believe I ever would. Clearly, the reason for his mother trying to control his life is disclosed later and those reasons shocked me but they made sense. The reasons made sense of Tom’s addiction to alcohol, his voices, his dreams.

Tom’s relationship with Jeff and where it was going to was obvious to me from the first night they worked late together. I hoped that ultimately it would be a happy ending as I really felt, despite the way Tom treated Chari, that he loved Jeff and deserved some happiness.

Sadly, I found the second part of the book didn’t intrigue me as much as the first part. Whilst I admired Tom for taking on Billy, and I felt sorry for what he was going through trying to deal with his alcoholism, the second part of the book just didnt work for me. It was obvious to me that Billy must have known about Tom’s drinking from an early stage and I think there were opportunities to explore those feelings Billy must have had. But those opportunities weren’t taken.

I did like that Tom seemed to have learned from his mistakes and I was glad he had a happy ending of sorts but overall, I think the second part of the book didn’t match up to the first part, hence the three stars.

Much like this story, my rating is all over the place. It went from five stars, to three stars, all the way down to almost a DNF around 90%. I've settled on an average rating of 3 stars.

This story is told completely from Tom's point-of-view, and that's a long time to be in such a miserable character's head.

The first 50% of this story had me riveted. The voices weren't voices of madness as I expected by the blurb, but more introspection, something I could relate to.

I was really excited when he met Jeff, then that turned to custard, and so did the book. The second half is chock with almost every scenario you can think of.

Addiction, therapy, adopting a child (something that took a fair amount of suspension for belief for me, especially when he lost said child not once, but twice, due to his drinking) DUI's, blackouts, AA, falling off the wagon, back to AA, falling off the wagon again, mummy issues, a divorce, death of a parent, cancer....OMG, I'm exhausted writing that, which is fitting as this story is exhausting.

It's clear this is a labour of love, and I hate to discount it, but personally, I have no clue who to recommend it to, if anyone.