Bleed Through

Well that was different and I have to say very entertaining. Read it in three or four sitttings which is always a good sign.

Liam Murphy is a 25 year old college student who suffers with schizophrenia. Back living with his mother, sister and stepfather after his own father died, he thinks he witnesses a murder as he sees a man beaten to death on a marina. But there is no eveidence of the murder. No blood stains, no sign of struggle. Was it just another hallucination?

Trying to put it to one side and still attending his psychologist, he sees an apparaition appear from her. Is it someone from her past? Is it her sister or is it more hallucinations as Liam really has trouble telling what is real and what isn't.

With no one to confide in he stumbles across a friendship in college with a girl called Mai. She treats him differently than everyone else. She isn't afraid of him or suspicious. She doesn't think he's weird. She's intrigued by him and is a straight talker. Soon he feels he can tell her anything and confides in her about his visions and that he can see memories of people. Can he really have this gift or is it his schizophrenia? Was there really a murder or is it his imagination? Is Mai even real?

This is a stonkingly good read. We get the set up from the off. Schizophrenic guy with a history of bad hallucinations. What's real and what isn't? Told from his perspective it's a rollercoaster ride as we journey through his troubles as he tries to come to grips with family life, the voices in his head, his imaginary companions and his newly found apparent gift of these visions.

There is a bit of a curve ball to this novel as well as there is a supernatural element to it throughout. It sounds weird mingling the two elements in a novel - schizophrenia and supernatural but it works brilliantly here, helping to blur the lines even further as to what may and may not be real.

Liam is a great central character, hugely flawed of course, especially socially with his illness and can be a pretty unsavoury character for large parts of the story but you can't help being on his side, feeling sorry for him and rooting for him throughout. The family dynamic is very well written too as is his relationship with Mai.

It's a blast of a read. An easy read, very entertaining and has some interesting ideas in it. I'm not sure how accurate it is to the illness of schizophrenia but that's not really the point. It's an obvious work of fiction that veers into supernatural so the schizophrenia, although being the central theme throughout the book, is more a vehicle for the basis of the story. A story that I really enjoyed reading and would have no hesitation in recommending.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Curiosity Quills Press and Adriana Arrington for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I was fortunate enough to get an early ARC of this book and put it on my Kindle to read on the plane during a trip. I'd forgotten the premise, so when I started reading, I wasn't quite sure where things were heading, and it made for a pretty interesting read, because this book, even if I'd known where it was heading, defies expectations. Right away, things were a little off in the world of our MC, Liam, and then they went completely off the rails not much later. I love an unreliable narrator, but in this case, even Liam was keenly aware that his perceptions might not line up with reality, and although he seemed to want to present a factual account of his experiences, his brain had other plans. The characters he encounters are sometimes there, sometimes not, and as a reader, I'd find myself cataloging any pieces of evidence to help filter out those who fell in the gray zone, where Liam himself wasn't altogether sure. All of these threads begin to form a tapestry that creates a potentially imagined or possibly very real danger to Liam and his family.

I ended up tearing through this book, even spent 4 hours of my vacation flat on my back to race through the ending. Highly recommend.

The lines between reality and the imagination blur and focus, shift and shake, as 25-year-old Liam struggles to live as normal a life as schizophrenia will allow. Fully aware of his illness and its persistent hold on his mind, Liam swings between hallucinatory reality and realistic hallucinations. This book made me question my own sanity.

http://readdayandnight.blogspot.com/2018/02/books-i-read-in-2017-part-3.html