6 Seconds of Life

Tonya Fitzharris

Welcome to Reading Addiction Blog Tour’s stop for ‘6 Seconds of Life’.

Maura’s life has fallen apart to the point at which she wants to die. In fact, she’s jumping off the bridge and having her life replayed before her eyes right as you read. This novel is told as excerpts from her life in a breathtaking and spellbinding 6 seconds of text.

The official blurb:

Maura has just jumped.

Now she has precisely six seconds until she hits the water below her—just six more seconds until she is finally freed from her mundane and aimless existence. Freed of all of the regrets and disappointments that have haunted her throughout her nineteen years.

She just needs to be free.

But as she falls, the most pivotal points of her life start to replay like a movie in her head: her family falling apart, her first love, her first heartbreak, her first true friends, and her first betrayal. As she remembers these moments that brought her to this point, will she feel a sense of peace? Or will her death be her greatest regret?

My review:

I applied for this book, because mental illness is one of my favourite areas to read about. Someone jumping off a bridge immediately caught my fancy. The cover looked pretty neat too, although it turns out that the red dress is really not all that important.

Only occasionally did the text and dialogue not flow for me – the rest of the time I was so suckered into the story that I didn’t care. The various plot points were good, all interwoven really well. Loved the dollhouse, and its special significance for Maura as well.

The book immediately sucked me in. I was really happy up until the point that she jumped, and then the drop into the past seemed quite major. There were a couple of time shifts in this that had me confused, namely because it looked like she skipped from 9th grade to college very quickly.

There’s a couple of bits that seemed inconsistent to me – including the size of Maura’s breasts. Sorry to be so crude and mention them and all. You’ll note that on the cover they are quite small. At various points in the novel though, they are referred to as being out of proportion with the rest of her body, and she’s very ‘hot’. Perhaps it is a reflection of her poor body image that the text sometimes says they are small?

Maura’s thought processes get quite confused as the novel progresses. It appears she has anxiety and depression, perhaps a bit of PTSD. I felt really sorry for her actually, and I felt that although she had made some bad decisions, it wasn’t really her fault – that’s what mental illness does to a person. It’s strangely appropriate to be reviewing this in October, as this is Depression Awareness Month.

This novel illuminated to me some of the things that go on in frat houses in the USA. I’m slightly relieved that we don’t really have such things in Australia, as they sound like horrific drinking parties. The special week of induction and everything else was fascinating!

I loved this book. The ending had me a little disappointed but I guess this is young adult fiction for a reason and not everyone thinks in the same way as I do. Most people will probably be relieved by it – it offers hope in a strange way.

I sincerely hope that Fitzharris keeps writing novels in this genre, and with her fantastic style. I can see this book being unsuitable for younger teens, but I think for older teens (those who have encountered or have a healthy curiosity about sex) it is a fantastic and eyeopening read. This novel for me was really on par with some of the Julie Anne Peters novels that I love – the one that springs to mind on a similar topic is ‘By The Time You Read This I’ll Be Dead’.

Five stars from me – the minor things I’ve complained about didn’t detract from my enjoyment. The only thing that did was that my ereader ran out of battery right at a crucial part of the novel, and I had to stop and wait until I got home to finish reading it! Well worth the $5 it is on Amazon, and I’d consider buying myself copies of Fitzharris’ future books in paperback form.

Find it on:

Barnes and Noble and Smashwords

About the Author

Tonya Fitzharris is a writer, reader, blogger, mediocre cook, photographer, runner, Florida native, and cat lover. She used to be a Middle School English Teacher, but now she’s trying out the whole novel writing thing. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and her Belgian cat named Waffles.