In an Instant

Oh my - perfection is all I can use to describe this book. Raw, emotional, and so sad. It follows 16 y/o Finn who looses her life in an accident and watches of those she loves. She attends the vigil and sees the aftermath of what happened.

Me throughout most of this book:

Redfearn is remarkable at allowing us to feel one with Finn as she watches her family. It gave me “If I Stay Vibes,” but better. Loss, grief, and healing - from the human world and beyond - are explored with such grade in this book.

If I was bad in the beginning, I was no better at the end. Thank god I had tissues on hand!

When I read the synopsis of this book I wasn't sure what to expect and whether I was going to enjoy the read. I sat down with a glass of red and settled in for what I hoped was a good read. That glass of wine, turned into 3.

It literally starts with death. Poor Finn..... dead.

After a decision changes the fate of a car full of people in the blink of an eye, a snap move that leads to the death of his daughter.
The choices that they make will haunt them all forever. Once the survivors make it back to the land of the living, she stays on and observes the aftermath and the lies that are told to hide the dark truth of what happened during the blizzard. The story is narrated by Finn who is watching from her afterlife, as her family and friends navigate through their heartache and all consuming rage. She sees everyone and can do nothing to ease their grief. It's devastating to see the aftermath of such a tragedy. Being invisible to the people you love.... That is worse than hell.

The whole book is very cleverly put together. She has the main character, who isn't of this realm anymore, narrating from her birds eye view perspective, so it's all first hand what we are experiencing. Kind of in love with the concept. It was hard to put down. I'm not going to lie, I'm going to be purchasing a copy as soon as it's available.

It's a compelling story of friendship, love, betrayal, and madness.
Best book, I think I've had as an ARC.

Has a similar vibe to the Lovely bones and I was nowhere near blown away with that book as I was with this one. I can't recommend it enough!

If you want a page turning that you will hate to put down (your partner might need to pry it from your hands), then this is your book. Time to hunt down the other books this author has written! I can see us becoming lifelong reading friends.

I rarely give 5 stars but this one is brilliant and I will make sure to let the world know they need to purchase this on release day!

#InAnInstant #NetGalley

"Don't just try to be happy when you think of me--be happy."

It took me a bit, but I finally remembered why I had this book on my to-read shelf at home. My mom dropped it in my hands the last time they visited, and said I had to read it. And while I generally don't read books with teenage protagonists, this one was really good. If you know anything about me and my reading preferences, that says something.

So Finn and several members of her family are on a vacation trip in the winter. Dad, mom, sister Chloe and her boyfriend, brother Oz, Uncle Bob, Aunt Karen, and their daughter Natalie, Finn's friend Mo, and hitchhiker Kyle they picked up because his car broke down. The weather deteriorates, their vehicle crashes, and Finn dies. But rather than that being the end of her POV, she lingers as a ghost, as she witnesses what happens to everyone immediately after the accident, after rescue, after they all try and move on after experiencing the things they experienced. Closure is hard, as it turns out.

While the accident is tragic, the actual focus of the book is on how the family moves on. Several bad things happened during the accident, stories about who did what and when got muddled, and sitting on lies causes them to fester. I loved the unique POV of Finn, ghost, unable to really do anything meaningful for anyone, but still forced to witness her family as things start spiraling. It's almost an omniscient POV, except for Finn being unable to know their thoughts, so it's really just her interpreting their actions and what she knows about them. Everybody is flawed in different ways here, and the beauty of the book is how (almost) everyone comes to terms with what happened and moves on in their own way.

Just a really moving book, I think. I felt things about Finn's family and the circumstances. I even think just the right amount of time was spent at the very end tying up the (ending spoiler here) Uncle Bob/Oz incident, because the focus the entire time was on closure after tragedy. I really liked this one.

Screaming crying throwing up. This book ripped my heart to shreds and made me really evaluate myself.

“Heartrending yet ultimately redemptive, In an Instant is a story about the power of love, the meaning of family, and carrying on...even when it seems impossible.”

I found it interesting for the story to be narrated by Finn, the daughter who perished in the accident, with her being the witness to everyone's truth and watching them move through their grief. Hard not to think of Jared while reading this story, wondering how he would have narrated his death and the aftermath. Don't worry though, I didn't dwell on that, nor will I.

If you enjoyed If I Stay you'll love this story. Finn and her family are in a horrific accident in Big Bear leaving them stuck in frigid conditions. The aftermath of their accident is what is unfolded in this story. Seen from Finn's point of view it reveals just how much we truly do not know the ones we call family. A tear jerker and thought provoking!! Four stars for this story!

I borrowed this book as a way to force myself to read something different. I am so glad I did. The journey of not seeing clearly to the redemption each character is searching for, makes this book a page turner. The writing is almost as if you were there, the feelings of joy, sadness, anger, guilt all can be felt. It takes you on a journey you can't forget.

When I started this book I was sure it was going to be a 5 star read. A tale of survival at what cost? Difficult decisions, complex characters, and a ghost! Yaassss! But after the tension eased the story became a run of the mill family saga (completely unrealistic - who gets over the loss of a child in 5 weeks?!?) and it became a 4 star. Then ALL the convenient romances wrapped up in a bow - urgghhh. 3 stars.

More Tragic if i stay. Probably the singular best way to describe this book is to take a fairly well known book/ movie that has a very similar overall narrative structure - if i stay - and point out that this is a survival tale that is even more tragic than that tale. Going into this blind, I thought from the prologue that something would happen to a particular character (and that this tale would thus become more similar to Catherine McKenzie's I'll Never Tell), but the expected tragedy strikes an unexpected character instead. The rest of the book is then a tale about the fight to survive the tragedy, both in the immediate physical fight to live and in the aftermath of dealing with the consequences of that fight. Overall a very powerful, very raw, look at human nature and just what happens in the face of true imminent peril. One made even more powerful by the afterword, where the author reveals a stunningly tragic episode from her real life. Very much recommended.