My Life as a Bench

The title of the book made me wonder just how this book was going to be. It was amazing in my opinion! A totally different and wild out there title that viewing now I realise combines life and death in one.

When someone passes away often a bench is left dedicated to them in a certain place, people living will still us the bench. That happens in the book certainly, just with our main character Lauren or best referred to as Ren being a soul like presence at her bench dedicated to her from her family after she has died.
Ren moves from Devon to find her dad in London after her boyfriend has moved on from her and Ren sees a video of him together with another girl. Upon finding her dad, she enters his life and is eventually accepted into his family now with a young daughter and step-mum for Ren to get to know.
Ren settles into school well with a group of friends and catches the eye of a boy called Gabe, she and Gabe become close but watch out when you read for her friends reactions to the drama that ensues.
I don't want to spoil the book, but a terrible incident occurs and a wrongly placed blame means Ren must break through to someone living to get the wrongly accused set free again.

This book is a stunner in my opinion and is definitely one that will always remain in my top ten easily! Enjoy!

Ren Miller, our protagonist, died a tragic death at seventeen. Her consciousness remains attached to a bench by River Thames. She makes friends with the adjacent bench, inhabited by the consciousness of an old man (Lionel). Throughout the book, we see Ren reminiscing about the months leading to her death and trying to contact the people who come to visit, with occasional conversations with Lionel (which I loved!). Let’s take a moment to appreciate this AMAZING premise, shall we? 🙂

I wouldn’t say I was able to connect with Ren all that much but I was able to appreciate the beauty of this story and that made me keep going. I wanted to know what happened to Ren. How did she die? Why won’t her boyfriend visit this shrine to her? Ren-the-bench spends each day talking to Lionel and the nights going through an endless loop of memories from the time she first came to London.

Through her memories, we see how she forms relationships with the people around her. She makes a lot of friends in London, with whom she hangs out often, too. At the same time, she also has a good relationship with her family. As for her relationship with Gabe, I felt that it was a little hurried. It would’ve been better if we’d seen more of their relationship, of it involving deeper conversations. But, this is also YA and we’re talking about seventeen-year-olds so I’m willing to overlook that.

The writing is perfect, the story is fast paced, and everything flows smoothly to tie up with a beautiful finish. This is a light-hearted read that will also make you tear up just a smidge on occasions. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes their YA contemporary with a touch of suspense.

Rating: 4 out of 5

I was a bit put off by the brightly coloured cover of this novel. It seemed to suggest chick lit and yet we are straight away introduced to Lauren (or Ren as she likes to be known) as she is set up as a memorial bench beside the Thames. Ren cannot understand why she is aware of being part of the bench. How? Is she trapped? Is she a ghost.
She died at 17. How? Soon neighbouring bench starts to speak to her. This is Lionel - a generation or more apart at the old age of 66 (when he died) but who's been here 20 plus years and is the voice of experience for Ren to try and come to terms with her current situation.
Slowly Ren explains her short life and how she came to die. Love of her life Gabriel is key as are her two families - linked now by her death.
Can anyone apart from Lionel hear her screams and pleas to know what happened when she died?
There is an intense teenage angst theme of love, parties, drinking and exploring becoming young adults which in itself would make the novel attractive to the YA audience.
Yet I felt a deeper exploration of friendship across differing generations and cultures and of course the trauma of violent death and grief which affects us all.
New author for me but one with a lot to offer.

This book was one of the most unique books I have read in a long long time.

Ren (Lauren) Miller has died tragically at the age of Seventeen. Her soul/consciousness lives on in a memorial park bench, by the river Thames, that her father bought in her Memory. Ren thinks mainly of her boyfriend Gabe who she misses. She spends her days wondering why he does not visit her as her family does. She also soon learns that the park bench next to her is inhabited by an older man named Lionel.

Her conversations with Lionel really shine for me. I loved how they talked about her life and he helped her cope with her situation and slowly begins to share more about his life with her. These conversations were my favorite parts of the book. I like how he helps her accept her situation and gently encourages her to remember what happened the night she died.

Through Lionel's encouragement, Ren attempts to make contact with people stopping by or visiting her bench. She speaks to everyone and there are some that do hear her. Naturally they are freaked out by this. Hearing a voice speaking to you and not seeing anyone can be spooky and make one question their mental state. Eventually Ren learns why Gabe has not visited and this motivates her more than anything to reach out and get a message about what really happened the night she died.

There have been many YA books where the female protagonist has died and she is trying to figure out what happened to her: how she died, who killed her, etc. This book is similar in that Ren cannot remember right away everything that happened leading up to her death. She remembers slowly over time, until the final "reveal" occurs. What worked for me was that, while reading this book, it never seemed absurd that she would inhabit/inhibit the bench. The idea was so unique but it worked!!!!!

Since the beginning of time, there has been talk about what really happens after we die. In this book, Ren and Lionel live on in memorial park benches. I really enjoyed the Author's unique approach of the after life or what happens to us after we die.

Her relationship with Gabe could have been flushed out more. She seemed to be much more into him than he was into her. He seemed unavailable and distant for most of their relationship . I realize this is YA and teens do tend to fall head over heels very fast.

I've said it before and I will say it again - this book is unique and that is a good thing(OMG did I just channel Martha Stewart in my review?) But seriously the uniqueness of this book worked for me.

I received a copy of this book from the Publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

What a novel idea - no pun intended. Giving voice to two deceased persons through benches along a walkway. was perfectly written with enough humor, pathos and drama to make it interesting. For sure I will never let my dog lift his leg on a bench again! What a fun book, that provides a lot of food for thought..

A short unique book. 17 yr old Ren finds her spirit stuck at a memorial bench after her death. Each night she relives the last few months of her life as well as her death. With the help of her bench neighbor Lionel, she uncovers the cause of her death and tries to come to terms with it. I found the story touching and suspenseful. A good read for a rainy day.

This book was such a pleasant surprise. I was intrigued by the description, but to be honest, I was more curious than optimistic about it. It seemed like it would be weirdly executed and feel disjointed, rather than what it was, which was so much fun to read!

My Life As A Bench is about a seventeen year old girl called Lauren, or ‘Ren’, who is dead. That isn’t a spoiler, by the way, it’s just how the story begins. Ren has died, but she lives on in the bench that her father has had made in memory of her. Day in, day out, she looks out at the view of the River Thames from her bench, and relives her life. Although she has some companionship in the form of Leonard, the bench beside hers that houses the soul of an elderly man who died over twenty years before, she is completely alone, stuck watching as passersby walk past, sit on her, let their dogs urinate on her. Her family visit her regularly, but really it is her boyfriend Gabe that she is waiting for. When she finds out why Gabe hasn’t visited her, she is devastated, and must find a way to communicate with the living to help him.

What I really loved about this book is that although it is supernatural in a sense, it doesn’t feel like it. This book feels firmly like a YA coming of age story, even though the protagonist isn’t dead, and she isn’t going anywhere. Ren still goes on a journey over the course of the book, and she experiences vivid emotions like joy, love, sadness, anger, frustration. Even better, she is such a brilliant character and Hazell, in my opinion, captured the voice of an English teenager today so well that Ren jumps right off the page. I felt like I knew her, like she was talking to me directly. Ren’s voice felt so real and personal that I didn’t even mind the way that the love story dominating the novel. Although I would have liked to have seen more of her life and relationships, it felt normal and fitting for her character; Ren was a selfish, and perhaps naive, teenager, and so even though I might not relate to the head-over-heels love for Gabe, it makes sense that after death, she would also be worried about the same things that she was worried about in life – her boyfriend.

Ren’s lively character contrasted so much with the fact that she is literally trapped in a bench, unable to communicate with the people that she wants to communicate with, that this book was often quite sad. It was interesting to read a book that felt so happy at times, but at other times made me feel so sorry for the main character. Every night, Ren relives her life, the friends that she made at her new school, her relationship with Gabe, and we are waiting for her to relive her ‘death day’ so we can find out what happened. These passages, where she is reliving falling in love and hanging out with her friends feel like any other YA contemporary drama, like a Jenny Han novel, but then Ren is brought back to reality by someone’s dog urinating on her bench, or kids making out on her. You really feel for her and her situation, and you want her to figure out whatever it is that she needs to figure out.

My only issue with this novel was that, in hindsight, there didn’t seem to be a clear plot progression. Yes, Ren was trying to find out how she died, and she did so, and there was closure, but the problem wasn’t really solved. Although this was explained and in a way that is quite realistic, I just found myself being genuinely concerned for Ren. Was she going to be stuck in the bench for decades just like Lionel was? It was implied by Lionel’s character that the dead can ‘pass over’ in a sense and no longer live in their bench, and I thought that this would probably apply to Ren, but at the end, she is still in the bench, and I don’t want her to be stuck in the bench! She doesn’t deserve to be stuck in a bench, even if the people she loves do visit her all the time.

Overall, this book was great fun and a really unique and original concept. I was so impressed by the way Jaq Hazell captured Ren’s voice and character so well and made her feel so read, and the way that the concept itself didn’t feel weird or out of place. The whole story flowed and the two storylines, Ren in the bench and Ren’s memories, gelled together really well.

I loved this book. It was definitely unique and it was told from a memorial bench (Ren) POV. Ren is 17 year old and deceased. After death, her conscience lives on through a memorial bench . My heart broke for her as she tells her story and how she yearns to reach out to the one she loves. I With each chapter, I was rooting her on to be able to break her silence and come through to speak with her loved ones and it happens and it's amazing. I loved how this book captured her youth and her rebellious teenage ways. I love how the author weaved her world together by telling her story (reliving her past and up to the moment of her death) and by capturing her conversations with Lionel. Overall, this book was well written, thought and emotion provoking and I would definitely recommend !

This book well and truly deserves five stars. The idea of someone's spirit inhabiting their commemorative bench after they die is unique and brilliant. Ren tells Lionel in the bench next to her all about her life and how she died. She is also trying to work out who killed her. She tries to communicate with people who are at the bench. A beautiful magical idea that is really well written. This book is definitely memorable.

From the Militant Recommender Book Review Blog: http://militantrecommender.blogspot.com/
The spirit of 17 year old Ren, or Lauren Bethany Miller, has taken up residence within the tribute memorial bench placed by her grieving family in a London park. There is a plaque attached to the bench with a scan code so when people point their smart phones at it... it opens a website with pictures, remembrances and videos of Ren singing, because, when she was alive, she was an amazing singer, in the style of her favorite, Amy Winehouse.

The next bench over is inhabited by the spirit of Lionel, an older gentleman, who tells her he had died of "boredom". He has been a part of this small patch of land for a long time and he is a comforting presence for Ren, and helps her to come to terms with her situation and what her spirit can and cannot do.

What Ren longs for most of all is a visit from, or even a glimpse of, her former boyfriend, Gabe. She wonders why he hasn't come to visit the bench. Then, she hears some startling information when some members of her family come to visit, that Gabe was charged with her death. As things from her past slowly come back to her she longs to reach out and make things right.

The author, beginning with this unusual premise, turns it into a moving story of a young life ending all too soon. The story cuts between Ren and Lionel's dialogues and Ren's remembrances of her past and the events leading up to her death. It is engaging, funny and also quite heartbreaking. Thank you to NetGalley and Nowness Books who granted my DRC wish! Highly recommended!

This book was so heart-warming and heart-breaking at the same time. Jaq Hazell was able to capture the feelings and intensity of your first love as a teenager so well that it took you right back to that time. You can't help but feel sorry for the protagonist, Ren, as she desperately tries to contact the people who pass her by or sit on her and you are constantly willing her to 'break through'. The flashbacks to her life when she was alive was so well written to avoid any confusion. I can't wait to read the next Jaq Hazell book! This will definitely be recommended for our library bookshelves and hopefully the students will enjoy it just as much as I did!

This was a beautifully written book. I cannot wait to share this with my students. This was one of those stories that took you in and the rest of the world was only background noise.

I was around a quarter of the way through this book when I realised that it was YA fiction but I decided to stick with it anyway even though it's been a while since I was a young adult! The storyline is good and it was initially the title that caught my eye. It's a different take on death and where we end up afterwards. I actually enjoyed it a lot. It's a kind of love/crime/teenage angst kind of book which I would definitely recommend to the sort of audience that the author is trying to reach out to. 4 stars from a 49 year old who still thinks he's a teen 😂

I thought this was a quirky book and I truly enjoyed it. It's a combination of a love story and a mystery as a plot.
Do you ever wonder whether you do "Rest In Peace" after you leave this earth?
An interesting concept from a 17 year old girl, Ren, whose life ends abruptly. Each and every day, she relives the events leading up to her death, her feelings as a teenager. Through her friend, Lionel, she begins to understand that if those that remain on earth, would take a moment and listen, we will hear the message from those who have passed on.
I thought this was a wonderful read!

This book was so good! I think I would have read it in one sitting if it wasn't an eBook. Ren was such an interesting character, though maybe the fact that she was stuck as a bench had something to do with her. Still it was interesting to hear how she had run away from Devon to find her father and how she coped with living in London.

But the most important part was the bench. It's just such an interesting take on the afterlife, bringing the idea of ghosts and memorials together to have a person inhabit the object with their plaque on, leaving them to observe the world and relive their memories until they find release from the limbo they're stuck in.

The book would have been dull however, but for the mystery surrounding who had killed Ren and how exactly she had died. I liked the way Hazell teased the reader, throwing out several different hints about how she might die. The way he threw out the idea of gangs and knives and guns which could easily be foreshadowing or just a red herring.

This is definitely a book that I would recommend. It's just such an interesting premise and it was so well executed.

When I have the hard copy of a book, of course I judge it by its cover. I’m pretty darn petty that way. But…when it’s the kindle version, I go by what I’ve heard. And Jaq Hazell’s My Life As a Bench is one that I’ve been hearing about a lot lately. So, when Netgalley let me have a copy for a review, I bumped that book to,the top of my list.

It quickly became obvious that I don’t download many books because, when it didn’t seem to be working correctly, I accidently ended up downloading it an additional seven times. Whoops! But…out of those eight downloads, I picked one and quickly read it. And came away considerably impressed.

First, in case you haven’t heard of this one, here’s a quick description for you:

Ren Miller has died aged seventeen and yet her consciousness lives on, inhabiting her memorial bench by the River Thames in London.

Ren longs to be reunited with her boyfriend Gabe, but soon discovers why he has failed to visit. Devastated, she must learn to break through and talk to the living so she can reveal the truth about her tragic end.

Unique, haunting and compelling, this is a story about love, friendship, a passion for music and what, if anything, remains after we’ve gone

I’m a sucker for modern British writing. And, of course I’m a huge music fan. So there are a couple of things that just jump out to like right away. As has been the case with a number of the books I’ve received – and read – lately, this one I guess fits in the ‘Young Adult’ category, but good writing is good writing.

My mother died when I was a a kid and there’s a bench that was put up in her honor near the lake in my old home town. It was even in a picture used on the cover of one of the local phone books (remember those?) years later. So I can relate to that form of remembering someone. Though the idea of someone’s consciousness residing there is a bit worrisome (a.k.a. creepy). But it still ends up being a fairly light read without the darkness that could be there with a main character that has already died.

But the story is written so well, the pacing so smooth and timed out perfectly that it sucks you along and takes you away throughout. The ending is fairly predictable and gets dragged out a bit over the final chapters, but I won’t take too much away from it for that. It was entertaining, well constructed and completely worth the read. So no complaints. I’d give it a 4.5 out of 5 and, though I may never read this novel again, I’m curious enough to check out the author’s other work to see what they’re like.

But for now, I probably need to get away from Young Adult reading to something else for a bit. Maybe like watching some hockey…

My Life As A Bench

I loved Jaq's last novel, I Came To Find A Girl and so was expecting big things from My Life As A Bench...I wasn't disappointed, it's amazing!

Lauren, or 'Ren' as she likes to be known, has died at seventeen, and yet her consciousness lives on in her memorial bench by the River Thames. She longs for her boyfriend to visit her bench until she learns why he hasn't, and must learn to 'break through' and explain how she met her death. I really liked the relationship between Ren and Lionel, the 'bench' next door.

This is a stunning book and I absolutely loved it. The title makes it sound insane but it's insanely unique and beautiful, questioning what actually happens to us when we die. Ren's narration jumps between present day and her teenage life when she was alive. I think this is a brilliant idea for a book and it really captures your imagination. I loved this book so much I feel like I'm stumbling over what to write and that I'm not doing the book justice!

I cannot recommend this book enough, I'd say it's a Young Adult read but all ages will enjoy it. With many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher, 5* ++++.

I like unusual and, in this case that's what I got. Very unusual indeed. A 17-year-old girl, a life destroyed in an instant, her soul trapped In a bench as she's trying to work out what happened. She's trying to be reunited with her boyfriend but nobody will listen. An amazing premise with extraordinary execution and a fulfilling ending - what more could you ask for, what more indeed.

Seventeen year old Ren has died yet her spirit lives on in her memorial bench by the Thames. This was so different, original and good. A very enjoyable YA read.

Well, this is an interesting concept. Ren died at age 17 and now she is living on in her memorial bench by the Thames river in London. Ren is able to communicate with Lionel, the memorial bench closest to her. Lionel was an old man and he tries to share his wisdom with Ren who relives her relationship with her boyfriend, Gabe, every night. She also relives her death, but she can never remember it when she "awakens" in the mornings. When she finds out that Gabe has been charged with her death, she is determined to remember how she died because she is certain that Gabe did not kill her. Lionel has told Ren that she can communicate with the living if she tries hard enough and her goal is to convince someone that Gabe is innocent so that he won't be convicted of her murder.

Totally in love with this book! I will certainly read again. Unique and well written!

The premise of this book is slightly bizarre, yet that's what drew me towards it in the first place. Ren is a teenage girl who has died prematurely, and now her consciousness inhabits a memorial bench beside the River Thames in London. We find out more about her life, and how she died, through conversations she has with the consciousness of the neighbouring bench, Lionel.

I enjoyed reading this book. The murder-mystery element keeps it interesting, although the reveal is far from shocking and it's easily guessed. The ending isn't as neatly resolved as I expected it to be, but I liked it, and it left me feeling satisfied. I really grew to love Ren and found myself getting very angry on her behalf. I love books that make you feel something so strongly, and this is exactly what My Life as a Bench did.

Overall, it's a strange, beautiful, sad book, and the chances are that you won't have read anything like it before.

(Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

I'm not normally a YA reader but there was something about this one that made me want to pick it up.
It was unique and thought provoking with stunning writing.
I think topics like loss are important and I appreciated Hazell's way of portraying it.

What would you do if you died, only to be trapped in the memorial bench set up to remember you?

This is the case for Ren Miller, having died after being pushed off a balcony, she is trapped in the wood seat by the River Thames.

Wanting nothing more than to see her boyfriend again, the reader is pulled along while the she constantly relives her life, trying to determine the exact chain of events that led to her death.

She isn't entirely alone, however, as the bench beside her is occupied by an old man named Lionel.

It is a story of hope, loss and hope again. Part mystery and part heartfelt eulogy, Jaq Hazell tells an excellent story.

Five stars/Five Stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️