Book Recommendation – Not Quite Dead Yet

When I listen to an audiobook, I use the Libby or Hoopla apps in my car. Most of the time I will go to my Goodreads “Want to Read” list and search the apps for what is available. One thing that I have noticed is many of the recommendations on all of the apps are the same. I will see some of the same books popping up on them. I also see them being recommended by other bloggers.

One of those books that seemed to come up a lot was Not Quite Dead Yet By Holly Jackson. It has been on my “to be read” list for a bit. My wife read it and said I needed to read it next.

I won’t lie, sometimes I worry about reading a book that has a lot of hype. When it is all hyped up and it is good, it’s no big deal, but if it is hyped up and is a let down, it bugs me. I am happy to say that this one did live up to the hype.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

A twisty thriller about a young woman trying to solve her own murder.

In seven days Jet Mason will be dead.

Jet is the daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Woodstock, Vermont. Twenty-seven years old, she’s still waiting for her life to begin. I’ll do it later, she always says. She has time.

Until Halloween night, when Jet is violently attacked by an unseen intruder.

She suffers a catastrophic head injury. The doctor is certain that within a week, the injury will trigger a deadly aneurysm.

Jet has never thought of herself as having enemies. But now she looks at everyone in a new light: her family, her former best friend turned sister-in-law, her ex-boyfriend.

She has at most seven days, and as her condition deteriorates she has only her childhood friend Billy for help. But nevertheless, she’s absolutely determined to finally finish something:

Jet is going to solve her own murder.

It was a unique murder mystery because the dead person wasn’t dead yet. We follow her from the night she is attacked through the week that follows. The police are running their own investigation, but it is not fast enough for Jet. So she sets off to do her own investigation.

The hardest part of the book for me to swallow was how much she is able to do after being injured. I even asked my wife, “How is she able to do this and that when she had that head injury?” She told me, “Well, she is a very strong and determined woman driven by the need to solve the crime.”

That didn’t deter me from finishing the book. As she goes through the week, there are things that begin to happen to her body that lets you know her time is almost up. So, I guess it’s not like she is Super Woman.

The book has many twists to it. It is one that has you believing one person did it, and then makes you think someone else did it, and then pulls the rug out from under you. I had a hunch, but kept ruling out who I thought it might be the more I read. I was totally wrong and surprised at the end.

Worth the read. Lived up to the hype.

4 out of 5 stars