Sunday 24 July 2016

Book Review: While My Eyes Were Closed by Linda Green





About The Book
Lisa is a busy mum of three. She works at a gym and keeping fit is an important part of her life. She got through life as being a young single teenage parent of her first daughter and went on to be successful in the best way she knows how and went on to have two more children with her husband.
She doesn't always have time to stop and appreciate certain things.  She's not the sort of mum who will sit and stare at her children longingly as they sleep and think about how beautiful they are. She misses her lie ins and having a quiet journey in the car without her two youngest children squabbling in the back seat.
But soon that's going to change. Soon she is going to miss hearing those squabbling. Soon she is going to miss not watching her children sleep. Soon, her whole life is going to change.
An innocent trip to the park and a quick game of hide and seek turns into turmoil when someone is watching Lisa and her daughter and sees an opportunity to change everything Lisa holds dear.

Review
Wow. This book was fantastic. Very gripping. Very relatable in places. Very well written. I read it rather quick, I just didn't want to put it down!
Here we start off reading about a mother who is  not one of these 'mumsy mums' you might have heard about. She's just a normal mum, with a busy life and whilst she loves her children she doesn't pretend that it's all plain easy and roses and she has no regrets about that- until her youngest daughter is abducted. It was good to read how this mum doesn't necessarily change into what you might consider a 'mumsy mum' (I think of my own mum as I  write that term...) but she begins to realise that she should have spent a bit more time watching and observing and taking things in and appreciating. Even just for a couple of seconds, because you never know if that could be your last chance to do so.
It's something we as parents try not to think about- or if you're like me, you think too much about it!- the possibility of your child being one of those children you see on the news. A parents worst nightmare.
We watch how Lisa tries to handle the situation and how she tries to remain strong but ends up almost pushing people away because after all, who wrote the rules on how to handle a child being abducted?

I don't want to tell too much about where the story heads because, as usual, I think it's more fun to just read it yourself without knowing. The other half of this book is.. very infuriating. In good way, because of the person involved and their views. You feel yourself feeling very angry towards this person and their views (or I did, perhaps you might agree with this person and empathise and that's fine too) and feeling very frustrated with it. But then this person will make a couple of points which in some places are technicially true and you find yourself reluctantly agreeing with her. Though not often.
The only downside to this book was I felt the ending was a little rushed. To me, it didn't really fall in line with the rest of the theme of the book and how people were reacting to speculations. It just seemed that something was decided and everyone went along with it without any question- unlike in the rest of the book. But other than that, very good. 4.5 starts out of 5.
MamaMummyMum

3 comments:

  1. This sounds quite thrilling!! Adding to my TBR list!! Thanks for sharing with #ReadWithMe

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  2. I loved this book I literally read it in one go, couldn't put it down #readwithme

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  3. Ooh this is on my kindle I think, the title alone really intrigued me! Must bump it up now! #readwithme

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