drannieg's review
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
Very pacy, read in one sitting, trying to stop myself moving straight onto the next. For anyone worried re trigger warnings, deals with v nasty men (this is obvious from the first chapter) but the sexual nastiness is largely implied, never graphic and no worse than the average Michael Connolly and way less than Jane Casey.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Trafficking, Kidnapping, Child abuse, Violence, Sexual violence, Torture, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Blood
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Abortion, Murder, and Rape
sberatelkaknih's review
2.0
Uff... Ze začátku jsem byla strašně zmatená. Vůbec jsem nechápala souvislosti mezi jednotlivými postavami a vlastně jsem ani nevěděla, o co jde. Hlavní protagonistka Abigail, bývalý detektiv, ztratila paměť a snažila se najít dívku, kterou hledala. Nechápala jsem, jestli tím chce oživit své ztracené myšlenky, nebo jestli se tomu brání. Začetla jsem se asi na posledních 50 stranách, které byly hodně akční. Asi bych si knihu musela přečíst ještě jednou, abych ji pořádně pochopila, ale to se mi vážně nechce.
toofondofbooks's review
5.0
Past Life is about Abigail Boone who is suffering from amnesia following a traumatic incident where she was abducted and held for days before being found. Doctors haven’t been able to treat her memory loss so now she’s just trying to pick up the pieces of her life and to move on as best she can. She’s lost her career in the police, and her relationship with her husband and son is floundering as she has no memories of either of them. Boone decides that the best thing she can do to find herself is to get back to trying to find the young woman she was searching for at the time she herself went missing.
Abigail Boone is such a brilliant character. She has her flaws – she’s stubborn, she doesn’t listen to advice and she throws herself into situations without really considering the consequences but I loved her fierce determination! She tries so hard but can’t seem to find a way through to her past and so focuses on the here and now and what she can do. I really admired this trait.
‘Identity can be proved with papers, but how do you prove self? How do you measure a person, seek evidence of what they might be? Only in the past, Boone concluded, and in that thing constructed by the past that we call a mind.’
Boone is trying to find Sarah Still, who has been missing for a long time now but Boone feels sure that she was on the right track to finding Sarah before she was attacked. This leads Boone to meet Roo, the woman she was held with, and I adored the relationship that grew between these two women. They are so different to each other and there is something of a language barrier at times but the way they overcame this and developed a respect for each other was so great to read about. The friendship they have, along with Boone’s friendship with Tess (a woman Boone helped while still in the police force and has kept in touch with), were the anchors that Boone needed in a time where she no longer connected with the people she was close to before.
I felt that Boone’s stubborn need to find Sarah, rather than being home and trying to connect with her family, perhaps came from the fact she now knows what it is to be missing. Boone is there but she’s not there; she doesn’t know who she was before and the only reference points she has are what other people have told her. Sarah is physically missing from her life but the person she left behind wants her back as much as Boone’s husband Jack and son Quin want Boone back.
This is a gritty novel, and it’s very dark in places but it’s so believable and it’s very well written. There is an air of melancholy that runs through the novel but it never feels depressing. The brilliant Boone, along with Tess and Roo, keep you hooked and I felt like I was right along with them throughout this story. I so badly wanted all of them to come out of it and be okay.
Past Life is such a brilliant and gripping crime thriller but it’s also an excellent exploration into what makes a person who they are. What is left to cling to when you’ve lost who you are, or when you’ve lost the person you love. There is so much depth in this book, and there were moments that felt so profound to me that I had to put it down for a few moments just to process what I was reading. My disability took my physical abilities from me so while I still know who I am, I can’t be who I was before so I felt something of an affinity with Boone. This book came to mean such a lot to me and I know it’s one that will stay with me. It’s very rare for me to connect so much to a crime thriller but Past Life is something special.
This is one of those really compelling books that you just can’t put down – I simply had to know how it was all going to turn out for Boone! She’s such a real, authentic character that I felt bereft when I turned the last page of this book. I still keep thinking about her and wondering how she’s getting on. This is a book that I won’t forget and I think Past Life may well make my best books of the year come the end of December! It’s gritty and gripping, thrilling and very difficult to put down… plus Boone will steal your heart! I highly recommend this book!
This review was originally posted on my blog https://rathertoofondofbooks.com
Abigail Boone is such a brilliant character. She has her flaws – she’s stubborn, she doesn’t listen to advice and she throws herself into situations without really considering the consequences but I loved her fierce determination! She tries so hard but can’t seem to find a way through to her past and so focuses on the here and now and what she can do. I really admired this trait.
‘Identity can be proved with papers, but how do you prove self? How do you measure a person, seek evidence of what they might be? Only in the past, Boone concluded, and in that thing constructed by the past that we call a mind.’
Boone is trying to find Sarah Still, who has been missing for a long time now but Boone feels sure that she was on the right track to finding Sarah before she was attacked. This leads Boone to meet Roo, the woman she was held with, and I adored the relationship that grew between these two women. They are so different to each other and there is something of a language barrier at times but the way they overcame this and developed a respect for each other was so great to read about. The friendship they have, along with Boone’s friendship with Tess (a woman Boone helped while still in the police force and has kept in touch with), were the anchors that Boone needed in a time where she no longer connected with the people she was close to before.
I felt that Boone’s stubborn need to find Sarah, rather than being home and trying to connect with her family, perhaps came from the fact she now knows what it is to be missing. Boone is there but she’s not there; she doesn’t know who she was before and the only reference points she has are what other people have told her. Sarah is physically missing from her life but the person she left behind wants her back as much as Boone’s husband Jack and son Quin want Boone back.
This is a gritty novel, and it’s very dark in places but it’s so believable and it’s very well written. There is an air of melancholy that runs through the novel but it never feels depressing. The brilliant Boone, along with Tess and Roo, keep you hooked and I felt like I was right along with them throughout this story. I so badly wanted all of them to come out of it and be okay.
Past Life is such a brilliant and gripping crime thriller but it’s also an excellent exploration into what makes a person who they are. What is left to cling to when you’ve lost who you are, or when you’ve lost the person you love. There is so much depth in this book, and there were moments that felt so profound to me that I had to put it down for a few moments just to process what I was reading. My disability took my physical abilities from me so while I still know who I am, I can’t be who I was before so I felt something of an affinity with Boone. This book came to mean such a lot to me and I know it’s one that will stay with me. It’s very rare for me to connect so much to a crime thriller but Past Life is something special.
This is one of those really compelling books that you just can’t put down – I simply had to know how it was all going to turn out for Boone! She’s such a real, authentic character that I felt bereft when I turned the last page of this book. I still keep thinking about her and wondering how she’s getting on. This is a book that I won’t forget and I think Past Life may well make my best books of the year come the end of December! It’s gritty and gripping, thrilling and very difficult to put down… plus Boone will steal your heart! I highly recommend this book!
This review was originally posted on my blog https://rathertoofondofbooks.com
lindzy's review
3.0
Full review here
The premise of Past Life by Dominic Nolan caught my attention and – as I’m always on the look out for new and upcoming authors – I was eager to read it. I haven’t read many books involving memory loss, and haven’t been impressed by the ones I have, so wanted to see how it was handled.
I can’t decide how I feel.
On one hand, I loved it. The character of Boone was refreshing and engaging – there’s no walking on eggshells around Boone. The memory loss was handled well: no cliché moments, no miraculous recoveries just in the nick of time – this is her reality now and we see a woman determined to get on and deal with it.
Boone’s obsession with finding the men who did this is also understandable: when it’s the only thing you can remember, it makes sense to be driven. She’s stubborn, head-strong and heaven forbid if anyone tries to tell her to leave it. But with no past, there has to be a defining characteristic, and this is it.
The other characters all play their role. Tess and Roo give Boone what she needs, while her husband and son are uncomfortable reminders she’s not who she used to be. There’s no happy families in this book.
The writing is strong. The dialogue, especially, is one of the best I’ve read. It ignores the small filler words that we write but rarely speak, but is not written in a colloquial way that makes it difficult to read. It’s realistic and gives characters their identity by how they speak. I’ve never seen it done so effectively.
The technical side of the writing was also strong. This world was created in such a realistic way that I freaked myself out walking home. There’re not many books that feel grounded in reality in such a way that you end up looking over your shoulder, but this one did it for me.
However, there were a few things I wasn’t certain on. This was never going to be a light-hearted read, but there were moments where the violence was a little too graphic for me and I was recoiling reading it. If those scenes had been longer, I probably would have skipped parts. Luckily this only happens at one point, but there is implied violence and rape throughout.
Boone was also hard to connect to on an emotional level. She leads her friends into danger, without thinking of the outcome. She only thinks about revenge, not consequences, the entire way through. She also doesn’t appear to overly react when tragedy hits near the end.
The ending was also quite unsatisfying. Everything the book had been building towards, everything Boone was after, and she doesn’t get it. No happy family, no satisfying win against the bad guys, nothing. As a reader, I was left almost feeling what was the point?
An engaging and intense read overall, and not one for those who don’t like things getting nitty and gritty!
The premise of Past Life by Dominic Nolan caught my attention and – as I’m always on the look out for new and upcoming authors – I was eager to read it. I haven’t read many books involving memory loss, and haven’t been impressed by the ones I have, so wanted to see how it was handled.
I can’t decide how I feel.
On one hand, I loved it. The character of Boone was refreshing and engaging – there’s no walking on eggshells around Boone. The memory loss was handled well: no cliché moments, no miraculous recoveries just in the nick of time – this is her reality now and we see a woman determined to get on and deal with it.
Boone’s obsession with finding the men who did this is also understandable: when it’s the only thing you can remember, it makes sense to be driven. She’s stubborn, head-strong and heaven forbid if anyone tries to tell her to leave it. But with no past, there has to be a defining characteristic, and this is it.
The other characters all play their role. Tess and Roo give Boone what she needs, while her husband and son are uncomfortable reminders she’s not who she used to be. There’s no happy families in this book.
The writing is strong. The dialogue, especially, is one of the best I’ve read. It ignores the small filler words that we write but rarely speak, but is not written in a colloquial way that makes it difficult to read. It’s realistic and gives characters their identity by how they speak. I’ve never seen it done so effectively.
The technical side of the writing was also strong. This world was created in such a realistic way that I freaked myself out walking home. There’re not many books that feel grounded in reality in such a way that you end up looking over your shoulder, but this one did it for me.
However, there were a few things I wasn’t certain on. This was never going to be a light-hearted read, but there were moments where the violence was a little too graphic for me and I was recoiling reading it. If those scenes had been longer, I probably would have skipped parts. Luckily this only happens at one point, but there is implied violence and rape throughout.
Boone was also hard to connect to on an emotional level. She leads her friends into danger, without thinking of the outcome. She only thinks about revenge, not consequences, the entire way through. She also doesn’t appear to overly react when tragedy hits near the end.
The ending was also quite unsatisfying. Everything the book had been building towards, everything Boone was after, and she doesn’t get it. No happy family, no satisfying win against the bad guys, nothing. As a reader, I was left almost feeling what was the point?
An engaging and intense read overall, and not one for those who don’t like things getting nitty and gritty!
timbookshelf's review
4.0
I don’t pick up pure crime novels as much as I used to, and this has made me question why! This was a great mystery, with the added layer of our protagonist questioning and discovering who she is. Often the ‘struggling detective’ can become a tired trope, but here it’s done really well and feels realistic rather than forced.
Trigger Warnings: Sexual assault (not graphic), graphic violence
Trigger Warnings: Sexual assault (not graphic), graphic violence
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