Breathe In, Bleed Out by Brian McAuley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“I’ve got way too many red flags to ever want to date me.”
“Religion is just another way that humans desperately try to control the chaos of reality…society is failing us all.”
“’Not every experience needs to be captured. It’s important to remember that your first love was the sound itself, not a secondhand recording.’”
“My friends’ behavior is not my responsibility.”
Breathe In, Bleed Out is about a woman who is still reeling from the death of her fiancé. This tragedy happened in the wilderness when they were on a hike but no one knows the true story. Hannah is barely getting through life. She is meeting with a psychiatrist that is prescribing mediation. She messes up at work and is forced to take some time off. Her best friend, Tess, that Hannah has been blowing off shows up for her birthday and then invites her on this retreat. Hannah eventually caves and decides to go but what they encounter is beyond what anyone would think. They are unsure of Guru Pax and what he is promoting. No one knows what to make of his assistant Kimi. This group of friends are in for a murderous weekend. Who will survive? Will Hannah heal? Who is doing this?
Right off the bat I love the cover! It reminds me of old comics or horror films. And I love the title too. Every time I read the title I just sang “Breathe In, Bleed Out” to the tune of Machinehead by Bush. It is a great title! Brian McAuley wrote a damn good book. You can see some influences from other movies clearly but it felt like it was done in an authentic way and not just a carbon copy. The dedication which went “For those who found release and those still seeking it” spoke to me. I liked how it could mean many different things but also was hopeful. Everyone is on their own journey, including with their mental health. The first sentence “Dragging a body through six inches of snow is even harder than I expected” grabs you and makes you want to keep reading. It was well written. The characters were well defined and I actually cared about some of them. Miles was a DJ and did EDM shows which I connected with because I love EDM and I am thinking of starting to learn to create some tracks of my own. Some of them though were typical assholes that you wanted to see get their comeuppance. This thought attributed to one of the characters made me pause and reflect, maybe I think this too but I never really thought about it before. It was around how “graveyards were a sentimental waste of precious natural space that should be filled with life instead.” Imagine what we could do with that space. Hmm. The author did write some wonderfully evocative lines including, “I was just about ready to crawl into an empty grave myself, pull the dirt over me and call it a life.” I have definitely had similar thoughts before but I never heard it articulated so well. The book had some funny moments too. One that involved being thirsty and another with a big snake. Towards the beginning there were some descriptions of the environment, and I thought that someone was going to die in that way. I was right! Well almost, because there was a twist I didn’t see coming and it was awesome! Other death scenes were gruesome and pretty cool. I was squirming. One thing I didn’t like about this book, and it is not unique to this book, is the reliance on drugs or alcohol to give the character flaws or to create unreliability. To me, it is a little lazy but I guess it does reflect reality for some. It is not the fault of this book but another storytelling technique that is used involves dreams and hallucinations, but the audience doesn’t know it at the time. I dislike these immensely and there was a part like this in the book. I am not sure about the ending. I don’t know if I like who the killer turned out to be. I am still wrestling with that, but it wasn’t an immediate OMG WTF in a bad way. I haven’t decided yet. I didn’t write down any words that stood out to me. This is exactly the type of book to read if you are a fan of horror.
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