It Started With a Fall

Image source: Amazon

"I'm not most kids. I'm Louis Drax. Stuff happens to me that shouldn't happen, like going on a picnic where you drown."

I've always liked psychological/crime thriller so when I came across Liz Jensen's "The Ninth Life of Louis Drax" at a book fair, the title just sucked me in and I knew that I need to read this book.

People say don't judge a book by its cover and boy they are right. When I saw the title, I assumed that perhaps this book is about a boy who suffered from multiple personality disorder. Maybe he was traumatised... Turns out that I was in for another kind of ride (the 'ninth' here actually refers to his age).

Louis Drax is no ordinary boy. He is bright, precocious, and dangerously, disturbingly accident prone. At eight years old, he has experienced many accidents, some major, some smaller. But during a family outing to celebrate his ninth birthday, Louis falls off a cliff into a ravine and lapses into a deep coma. He was transferred to a clinic and Dr Dannachet tries to coax him back to consciousness. But the boy defies medical logic and the good doctor is drawn deeply into the heart of Louis' buried world. Only Louis holds the key to the mystery and he can't communicate...or can he?

Personally, I think Jensen did a brilliant job in terms of storytelling. She addressed every bit of details well and it was a very engaging read. Nothing was left hanging. The excitement (and disturbing-ness) of reading the early chapters were so strong that I couldn't put down the book once I've started it.

However, as I am a big fan of this genre, I was expecting a little bit more. Or maybe I was reading from a structuralist approach? I was preoccupied with identifying the patterns and that sort of laid out the ending for me.

It's a simple book to read (not so much for kids, maybe young adults) and at some point it reminded me of Mark Haddon's "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time". There's a couple of common elements such as parenting, problem child, pets and first person narrative (again structuralist approach!) But that's about it. They're quite different and this one moves at a faster pace.


Not revolutionary but definitely worth a read.