The Life Lucy Knew: A Novel

Lucy slips on ice, hits her head, and is in a coma for a month. When she wakes up, she thinks she’s married to a man with whom she had long ago ended a relationship. She thinks her current boyfriend, Matt, is just a work friend.

Lucy goes through the book grappling with what she remembers and her present reality. The premise is interesting, but the execution left something to be desired.

Matt, Lucy’s parents, and Lucy’s sisters all keep the truth of Lucy’s reality from her, with the hope that she’ll eventually recall what’s going on in her life. She doesn’t, though. This becomes apparent when Lucy can’t remember that her parents separated. Her parents keep that information from her until she finds out herself in a big, dramatic reveal.

It would be so easy for everyone to just tell Lucy the key facts of her life that are in contradiction with what she knows after coming out of a coma, but that wouldn’t make for very interesting reading. The truth turns out to be much less interesting than the narrative hypes it up to be, and readers will discover that Lucy is a much less likable character.