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BOOK REVIEW: This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum


Best friends Benny and Joy host a beloved 'comedy survival' podcast, gleefully finding life-affirming humour in near-death experiences.

When Benny arrives at Joy and her husband's home one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house.

With Joy missing and the hours ticking by, not even their most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets they have hidden from the world - and from each other.

If Benny wants to find Joy in time, and clear his own name, he'll have to solve the highest stakes survival story yet.

You know when a book tries to be too many things and it ends up just not doing any of them well? That didn't happen here. TSMSYL is a love story, mystery, crime drama - 368 pages of emotional distress with a beautiful result.

We're introduced to our two leading characters on Day Zero before everything changed, switching perspective between Benny and Joy to give us a real rounded feeling of their lifelong relationship, seeing them as people individually as well as a duo. I absolutely loved them; it took a minute for them to warm up and show their personalities, but even when they were in their professional persona's it was so clear that there was a rich history between them, a care, a shared understanding that shone through the politeness and on-air bravado. 

There was something diabolical about being able to watch Joy in the moments before she disappears, a surreal way of creating so much anxiety and letting the reader bond with her so we feel the fear alongside Benny, and giving us a chance to make our own theories about what's happened to her. 

The storytelling uses a mixture of unreleased memoir scraps and notes alongside the 'live' narration, letting us look back on their histories as well as desperately searching for clues not only about where Joy could be, but the secrets she's left behind too. It's delicate, thoughtful, patient - with the kind of writing that captures every emotion and lets us feel it. 

Each chapter melts by in the way that time does in a post-crisis daze, zipping from one moment to another with an excellent pace even when not much was happening. We join Benny as he tries to reconcile what's happening, find answers to his own questions and bring the lies both of them have been telling to the surface. Each moment was full of layers, a web of connections between between and years of secrets waiting to be found; with each one filling a piece of the puzzle and bringing us one step closer to figuring out what happened to Joy. 

[SLIGHT SPOILER AHEAD; SKIP TO END TO AVOID] 
The relationship between our two main characters was absolutely stunning, but I desperately wanted this to be what it felt like from the start -  a story about a real meaningful friendship without references to crushes or hints at romantic interest. When there started to be hints they had romantic feelings for each other, it slightly ruined something for me, broke this idea that they could be so close and still be only friends. However, I did manage to move past it and try to enjoy the new layer of tension, the unspoken parts of their relationship - it was handled beautifully, full of longing, patience and love and added another level of storytelling to the title. 
[SPOILERS OVER] 

A stunning love story wrapped in a mystery; and an ode to those relationships that get us through the darkest moments. An absolutely killer debut. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐

  • TSMSYL will be available from March 12th with Hodder & Stoughton 
  • This title contains potentially upsetting content including illness, pregnancy loss, references to terminal illness and death, abuse and coercion. 

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