To honour the release of But Then I Came Back by Estelle Laure, Raincoast decided to host a blog tour! Below is a review and rating of the book and a Q&A with the author. I hope you find it as interesting as I did!
Review:
But Then I Came Back begins swiftly and immediately leads into the events preceding the accident. During these events, you get a brief backstory of Eden's character, her problems, and her family. Knowing these details really helped me to visualize the story. It made the whole book more realistic. Eden had a life before the incident, her story, her entire existence, didn't just suddenly start the second she slipped into a coma. She didn't know in advance that she was going to be harmed, so she continued on dealing with her everyday problems until the last moment.
AND THEN... THE COMA. Estelle Laure wrote exactly what I thought being in a coma would be like, minus the whole Jasmine situation. I imagined an alternate universe where everything resembles your normal life, but something is off. Maybe everyones' faces are distorted, or random events take place that make absolutely no sense, or, in this case, flowers appear randomly all the time. I was so impressed and happy to read all about it. It was just so incredibly bizarre.
I was also incredibly excited that the novel didn't centre around the romance. I mean, I enjoyed the scenes with Eden and Joe, but I was more interested in the plot line with Jasmine, and how Eden was recovering from her coma. This got an A+ in my book. My favourite part about Eden's therapy was probably how she treated the whole situation. She would give sassy responses to her doctors and therapist but still treated them like old friends. It was hilarious viewing these scenes through her eyes.
Overall, I would 100% recommend this book. It deals with tough issues but presents them well, and still adds lighter tones and comedic scenes. It shows you that even when things look bleak, they will get better.
Rating: 8/10
Q: Have you yourself endured such a traumatic experience? What led you to this idea?
A: I personally have not been in a coma or had a major accident I needed to recover from. A really close friend of mine committed suicide as I was working on this. I had been writing a story about love and romance and suddenly I couldn’t do it. My life was consumed by questions of life and death and suicide and why we make the choice to live or die on a daily basis. The story unfurled pretty organically from there once I gave in to the subject matter.
That's all for today! Want to read more Q&A's with Estelle Laure? Check out the following blogs in the next couple of days!
Lauren,
at the Autumn Bookshelf
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