Today I’m delighted to be joining the blog tour for Suicide Thursday. My review is written with thanks to Anne Cater for inviting me on the blog tour and Orenda Books for my copy of the book.

Blurb:

Eli Hagin can’t finish anything. 

He hates his job, but can’t seem to quit. He doesn’t want to be with his girlfriend, but doesn’t know how end things with her, either. Eli wants to write a novel, but he’s never taken a story beyond the first chapter. 

Eli also has trouble separating reality from fiction. 

When his best friend kills himself, Eli is motivated, for the first time in his life, to finally end something himself, just as Mike did…

Except sessions with his therapist suggest that Eli’s most recent ‘first chapters’ are not as fictitious as he had intended … and a series of text messages that Mike received before his death point to something much, much darker…

Review:

Wow. I have absolutely no idea how to review Suicide Thursday and it’s one of those rare books that whatever I say, I’m not going to do it justice and you absolutely must read it yourself. 

Suicide Thursday is my favourite book by Will Carver so far. If you’ve read anything by this author before, you’ll know that linear stories with a beginning, middle and end are not his thing, but he is wonderful at observing people and society and expressing the things we all think about but don’t want to say out loud in a really inventive way. 

The protagonist of Suicide Thursday is Eli and through his narration and fake therapy sessions, we learn so much about him. He’s an incredibly well developed character with so many layers, and whilst he can be frustrating at times, I related to him quite well. I actually saw quite a lot of myself in him, including his inability to finish things, his procrastination and his annoyance by the fact that nothing in the song by Alanis Morrisette is Ironic, just unfortunate. (I loved the nod to the Ed Byrne sketch.) 

Alongside the dark humour (which I loved), Will Carver actually addresses some serious themes, such as mental health and suicide, grief and love. There are times when it’s not an easy book to read, particularly if, like me, you have a history of mental health issues or suicidal thoughts. However, it will make you think and I imagine that it will stay with me on the days and weeks to come. 

Suicide Thursday is available from Amazon.

You can follow the rest of the blog tour here: