Suspense during five long nights of reading until my husband, tossing and turning next to me, signalled that it was time to switch off the light. And even during the day I often found myself wondering how it would go on, and, being a teacher of the German language in a training school for nurses, I wished the book had been translated into German in order to provide them with another thrilling book about the locked-in-syndrome (the author quotes the famous Tavalaro-book). Then the way she makes the protagonist obtain his information only bit by bit, and his unheard participation in the conversations, all this is very convincing. Wonderful observations. The side characters like the nice nurse Pauline and the mean one, Connie, and, the one I like best, the singing Polish cleaner and the great episode when they watch - only part of - a football match together ... Really very well done, a pleasure to read. His longing for being touched (but not by Connie and Eleanor, though the last one is a friend). The family structures behind it, his sister's behaviour, his inability to speak out feelings - a mixture of guilt and love, it comes over so convincingly. When I was about to read the last 30 pages I started to wonder how the author would finish the book. And, to be true, I was not happy with the end. Luckily I had the chance to discuss it with Emily Koch in a friendly e-mail-exchange. She explained that for her it was the only possible ending, that she had considered other ways (among them solutions I would have preferred) but rejected them. Now, and that's the author's undeniable right, this freedom is both stimulus and reward for undergoing all the long and meticulous work of writing a good story. And no doubt, "If I die before I wake" is a wonderfully written one!
